[kyrra]

Look into the history of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Z Division.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Division

From another source:

> The program also provides innovative analysis to anticipate new and developing terrorist threats involving the use of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons and investigate opportunities to counter them. Z Program also works to understand the state of foreign weapons of mass destruction programs; informs U.S. counterproliferation decisions, policies, and efforts; and develops supporting technology solutions to dissuade or prevent states from acquiring WMD-related technologies, materials, and expertise.

Basically their nuclear expertise plus the Cold war (and 9/11) caused them to become a central actor within the US government to look into biological, chemical, and related weapons. So they have a lot of cross discipline expertise there now.

Edit: also see: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/01/z-di...