Spring Break
Bioterrorism detection gets a boost
Issue date: 4/17/08
Hospitals are likely to be the first line of defense against a bioterrorism scare if one were ever to occur. A slow trickle of exposed or infected patients could show up in the emergency department with a range of symptoms.
Rapid and reliable detection of the bioterror agent is the key to combating it successfully. Hopkins researchers have made a great leap forward with the development of a new test for potentially dangerous bacteria.
Many infectious diseases produce similar types of generic symptoms, which occasionally makes them difficult to diagnose under the crowded conditions of an emergency department, or ED.
Most people who walk into an ED with flu-like symptoms of cough and body aches will turn out to have a simple case of the flu, but how can you detect the rare instances where something is more serious?
One current method used to identify disease-causing pathogens such as bacteria or viruses involves the identification of the pathogen through its DNA sequence.
Every organism - from the simplest bacterium to humans - can be identified by its DNA signature, a fact that doctors and scientists often take advantage of.
DNA is analyzed, both in the laboratory and the hospital, by a reaction called PCR, or the polymerase chain reaction, which makes a large number of copies of any DNA molecule so it can be further isolated and tested.
The problem is, PCR and associated tests can be very slow. When a sample of blood containing bacteria and infected cells is drawn from the patient for testing, the bacteria has to be cultured or grown in a laboratory until the pathogens are concentrated enough to be analyzed using PCR. This means that a sample cannot be reliably identified immediately.
A group of doctors at the Hopkins Hospital emergency department and the School of Medicine's department of immunology has developed a way around some of these problems.
The group, lead by infectious disease specialist Charlotte Gaydos, has published a two-step process that homes in on specific pathogens from a small sample.
Rapid and reliable detection of the bioterror agent is the key to combating it successfully. Hopkins researchers have made a great leap forward with the development of a new test for potentially dangerous bacteria.
Many infectious diseases produce similar types of generic symptoms, which occasionally makes them difficult to diagnose under the crowded conditions of an emergency department, or ED.
Most people who walk into an ED with flu-like symptoms of cough and body aches will turn out to have a simple case of the flu, but how can you detect the rare instances where something is more serious?
One current method used to identify disease-causing pathogens such as bacteria or viruses involves the identification of the pathogen through its DNA sequence.
Every organism - from the simplest bacterium to humans - can be identified by its DNA signature, a fact that doctors and scientists often take advantage of.
DNA is analyzed, both in the laboratory and the hospital, by a reaction called PCR, or the polymerase chain reaction, which makes a large number of copies of any DNA molecule so it can be further isolated and tested.
The problem is, PCR and associated tests can be very slow. When a sample of blood containing bacteria and infected cells is drawn from the patient for testing, the bacteria has to be cultured or grown in a laboratory until the pathogens are concentrated enough to be analyzed using PCR. This means that a sample cannot be reliably identified immediately.
A group of doctors at the Hopkins Hospital emergency department and the School of Medicine's department of immunology has developed a way around some of these problems.
The group, lead by infectious disease specialist Charlotte Gaydos, has published a two-step process that homes in on specific pathogens from a small sample.
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posted 9/29/08 @ 6:26 AM EST
Bioterrorism agents can be separated into three categories, depending on how easily they can be spread and the severity of illness or death they cause. (Continued…)
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