2025-04-09 09:00:00
Alison McManus
Assistant Professor
Department of the History of Science and Technology
Johns Hopkins University
“In Search of New Poisons: Organophosphorus Research in WWII-Era Britain”
Abstract: During World War II, Cambridge University was an essential node of British chemical weapons research. Throughout the war, Cambridge chemists and biochemists sought to develop ever more effective poison gases, countermeasures, and means of detection. They knew time was of the essence, for German researchers were conducting similar work across the Channel, behind closed doors. These Nazi researchers ultimately beat their British counterparts in the search for novel poison gases, developing the organophosphorus nerve agents that we now know as tabun, sarin, and soman. Although Cambridge researchers produced compounds with notable structural similarities to these agents, they never devised a single compound of comparable toxicity and battlefield effectiveness. They reacted to their “near miss” with embarrassment after the war, asking themselves how a group of competent chemists could have overlooked such a promising group of compounds. Taking this question as a point of departure, this talk examines the organophosphorus arms race from the less successful British side. Through analysis of laboratory records and government documents, it reconstructs the reasons for this “near miss” in chemical weapons development. It highlights multiple contributing factors, including the complexity of chemical surveys, the scarcity of resources, and recurring disagreements between chemists and government contractors over which research problems to prioritize.
BIO: Alison McManus is Assistant Professor of History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University, who specializes in the history of modern chemistry. She began her career as a chemist, receiving dual undergraduate degrees in chemistry and history from the University of Chicago in 2016. She then completed her PhD at Princeton’s Department of the History of Science in 2023. She is currently writing her first book, titled, The Other Secret Weapons, which examines poison gas research and development in World War II.
