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Healing the Psychological Wounds of Terrorism Researchers Speed up Efforts to Combat Threat of Bioterrorism
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Researchers Speed up Efforts to Combat Threat of Bioterrorism
In 1346 in Kaffa, a city on the edge of the Black Sea, residents were besieged by Tartar warriors from western Asia in their attempt to take the town. The Tartars, like the majority of the European population, had begun to fall victim to the plague. In an effort to defeat their enemy, they catapulted plague-infested bodies and heads over the city's walls. More than 400 years later, the British would learn the efficacy of using disease as a weapon of war in the French and Indian War. As French and British soldiers battled American Indian tribes in 1754, the British feigned goodwill by giving blankets to the Indians. The smallpox-infested blankets killed the majority of Britain's and France's adversaries in the New World. According to Alison Freifeld, M.D., associate professor of medicine in the Section for Infectious Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), these are two of the earliest examples of what would come to be known hundreds of years later as biological warfare, or bioterrorism. Bioterrorism has proven an effective weapon throughout history. Today in the aftermath of the most significant biological attack on American soil in modern history, it remains one of the most feared weapons of war. In this time of heightened awareness, medical schools across the country are conducting research on select agents that may be used for biological warfare. Many academic researchers have been toiling in this field for years, but until recently their efforts have gone largely unnoticed. "People would tell me I was wasting time by committing university resources to develop detection methods for pathogens," says Steven Hinrichs, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Microbiology at UNMC. "They didn't believe that bioterrorism was a threat we would ever encounter." Over the past several years, Dr. Hinrichs has been working on developing new approaches to rapidly identify select agents in the case of a bioterrorism event. He is currently working with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to develop new molecular assays to detect dangerous pathogens and help overcome the limitations and high cost of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a lengthy process that is currently widely used. Another project aims to develop methods for the electronic identification of disease outbreaks. "We're developing application program interfaces and artificial intelligence software that reviews databases, looking for evidence of a change in either the health of a population or in a reporting activity that would indicate the likelihood of a bioterrorism event," Dr. Hinrichs explains. Both of these projects were funded in the wake of the post-Sept. 11 anthrax scare. Charles L. Turnbough, Jr., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, has been doing research on B. anthracis (anthrax) since 1996, when he became involved in a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop new detection techniques for anthrax spores. DARPA and the Army Research Office continue to fund his attempts to identify new ligands for the detection of anthrax spores - methods that he hopes will lead to more rapid, specific, and inexpensive identifications. Like Dr. Hinrichs, Dr. Turnbough expects his work will result in a desired alternative to the current PCR process. In a prophetic move, NIH began funding Dr. Turnbough's work to analyze the outermost surface of the anthrax spore in order to identify targets for possible vaccines on Sept. 1, 2001. Dr. Turnbough noted that his attempt to procure NIH funding originally weathered several rejections. "Ironically," says Dr. Turnbough, "one of their reasons for rejecting our second grant proposal - which we ultimately did receive funding for - was that nearly all of our references were from sources published before 1980. A number of scientists had worked with anthrax between 1950 and 1980, but before last fall there were only a few labs in the country that had any support to do anthrax work. That's why there weren't many papers." NIH is now directing more of its resources toward research on anthrax and other agents that may be used for biological warfare. Another NIH grant on which Dr. Turnbough is serving as the co-principal investigator is aimed at developing a non-invasive patch vaccine in which skin cells would absorb specially encoded DNA in order to stimulate the body to create an immune response when exposed to select agents. Equally important to the lab work of Drs. Hinrichs and Turnbough is the successful dissemination of response and treatment information to physicians who may find themselves treating the first victims of a bioterrorist attack. The Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections at St. Louis University School of Public Health was founded in 1999 to produce educational materials related to different pathogens in terms of diagnosis and treatment, said Greg Evans, Ph.D., the center's director. The center's target audiences are primarily physicians and the public health work force. "We're funded by a grant from the CDC to produce and disseminate material related to all the primary pathogens that may be used in an attack," says Dr. Evans. "Since this past fall, we have speeded up our efforts." Dr. Evans says his staff works to reach physicians directly through targeted mailings and distribution of educational CD-ROMs at the annual meetings of professional associations. "Our learning materials have focused on mainly anthrax," says Dr. Evans. "Smallpox, which we are increasingly concerned about, is now our second priority. After that, we will develop materials on each of the primary pathogens that may be used in a terrorist attack." |
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