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The state-of-the-art centre will help to enforce a near-universal ban on certain chemicals and train analysts from around the world. The state-of-the-art centre will help to enforce a near-universal ban on certain chemicals and train analysts from around the world. Credit: OPCW/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0) OPCW inspector training on using a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA)

2014 marks the centennial of the outbreak of World War I-the first war that saw the large-scale use of chemical weapons. Although poisons have been used in warfare for centuries, it was rapid advances in science and engineering and the rise of the modern chemical industry that made the mass production of toxic chemicals possible. The horrors of gas warfare led to the signing of the Geneva Protocol in 1925, which banned the use of \"asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases\" in war, but did not ban the production and stockpiling of chemical agents. Large arsenals containing nerve agents such as Sarin and VX were acquired during the years of the Cold War, these agents surpass the lethality of traditional World War I agents more than a thousand-fold. Tragically, chemical weapons were also used over much of the past century, most extensively during the Iran-Iraq War.

The inspection regime under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) requires both the ability to identify low levels of chemical agents, precursors, and decomposition products in complex mixtures while at the same time not exposing the inspection site to the risk of loss of confidential information related to the chemical composition of the sample. The method of choice for such detection of low levels of chemical agents is gas chromatography separation with mass spectral identification (GC/MS), but the usual method of such analysis-an extensive examination of the GC/MS data file for spectra matching the compounds of interest-is both time-consuming, prone to missing low-level components, and difficult to ensure that chemicals not relevant to the CWC are not discovered. To deal with these problems, AMDIS (Automatic Mass spectral Deconvolution and Identification System), a method of automatically finding all of the distinct chemical components in the GC/MS data file and then compare them to a library of spectra of chemicals relevant to the CWC was developed.

Issue Title: Analysis of Chemicals Relevant to the Chemical Weapons Convention

Continued efforts to maintain the ban on chemical weapons depend on nations sharing information to further build trust and global safety. Continued efforts to maintain the ban on chemical weapons depend on nations sharing information to further build trust and global safety. Peter Hotchkiss.

This article describes acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme involved in parasympathetic neurotransmission, its activity, and how its inhibition can be pharmacologically useful for treating dementia, caused by Alzheimer’s disease, or as a warfare method due to the action of nerve agents. The chemical concepts related to the irreversible inhibition of AChE, its reactivation, and aging are discussed, along with a relationship to the current international legislation on chemical weapons.

\"Novichoks,\" used in 2018 attack on former spy, to come under chemical weapons treaty. A class of nerve agents developed during the Cold War by the Soviet Union may soon be banned. During a meeting next month, parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention are expected to bring them under the convention's verification regime, along with two groups of carbamates that are also highly toxic. Novichoks have long been shrouded in mystery. The first public clues came in 1992 from a Soviet military chemist who later revealed structural details. The U.S. government for years classified the agents as top secret. But last year's assassination attempt against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, U.K., thrust the Novichoks into the spotlight. The new openness should spur research on their mechanism of action and on countermeasures and treatments.

The Geneva Protocol, an international treaty prohibiting the use of asphyxiating or poisonous gases and bacteriological methods of warfare, turned 80 years of age last Jun 17. It was fostered in part by a 1918 appeal in which the International Committee of the Red Cross described the use of poisonous gas against soldiers as a \"barbarous invention which science is bringing to perfection.\" With the advances in the life sciences and biotechnology that could make biological weapons more effective, safer to use, more difficult to detect, and therefore more attractive options for would-be users, scientists must be aware of the importance of their own work in upholding and developing international law; in particular, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

Advances in science and changes in the pharmaceutical industry are producing new threats to the international Chemical Weapons Convention, experts warn. Although the 11-year-old treaty is generally regarded as a success, there are around 4,700 sites which make everything from fertilizers to drugs, even though they do not produce chemicals on the conventions list of controlled agents. Because of their characteristics and design, a good number of these facilities could quickly convert to the production of toxic chemicals if anyone so wishes.