George Korch, Director of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center

George Korch serves as the director of Battelle National Biodefense Institute's National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, a government biodefense research laboratory created by the Department of Homeland Security.

Based in Fort Detrick, Maryland, the NBACC is a federally funded research and development center specializing in helping identify and mitigate biological threats to national security, according to Korch's LinkedIn profile.

Korch leads a team of scientists, technicians, professional staff, administrators, infrastructure engineers and biosafety specialists in support of the DHS's national defense enterprise.

He was part of the creation of the NBACC in the wake of the establishment of the DHS in 2003. 

Korch previously served in Fort Detrick as the commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Before joining BNBI in December 2018, Korch served for several years as the science adviser to the assistant secretary of preparedness and response for the Department of Health and Human Services.

He briefly served as acting assistant secretary for preparedness and response due to the departure of a colleague from the role to the Department of Defense.

Korch holds a doctorate from the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health. He is a visiting professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the said institution.

He is also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has several scientific publications and has been awarded numerous civilian and military awards and honors.