I've been disappointed from the reviews to see how many readers thought you had to have a lot of technical knowledge about bioterrorism to understand the 'technical jargon' in this book. I may be a molecular biologist, but the terms that the author uses are not really about bioterrorism specifically, and require only a rudimentary knowledge of genetics or cell biology, in my opinion. I mean, while there's still a lot to learn, we know a lot about genetics... far, far more than is even scratched at by this novel.
I was also surprised to find that people were so flummoxed... there's only a handful of paragraphs where the technical aspects, like gene promoters and caspase, are even discussed, from what I could tell. Although I did read the book quickly - because I was enjoying it so much, so maybe I'm wrong on that point.
This was largely, to me, a story about people and their mistakes and hubris and misconceptions, but people who also try their hardest despite those things. I was also grateful to the author for portraying scientists as complex people; some terrible, some great.

Anyway, I loved this book but it's clearly not a fun read for everyone.