National Security and Homeland Defense Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Workshop Presentations
Appendix D: Workshop Presentations
Pages 55-98
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From page 55... ...
Chemical agents are volatile and dermally active and it is immediately apparent when there is human contact with a chemical agent. Biological agents, however, are not volatile, not dermally active, and 55
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From page 56... ...
Medical doctors are unfamiliar with exotic agents used in biological weapons, and the prevalence of flu-like symptoms in the beginning stages of agent-induced illness often leads to misdiagnosis. Not only does this yield a higher probability of serious health problems or even death if infected, but these factors feed an enormous psychological fear of biological agents.
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From page 57... ...
A similar dual-use situation exists with technology like crop dusters. It is difficult to know if pesticides are being sprayed or biological weapons are being tested.
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From page 58... ...
Detection of biological agents is much more difficult than originally believed at the beginning of the Gulf War. Although anthrax, with an infectious dose of lOO organisms per liter is relatively easy to detect, many agents like Q fever have an infectious dose of only to organisms, requiring sensors to detect to organisms in lOO liters.
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From page 59... ...
We have to educate people to be aware of the risk. Any developed nation in the world could produce biological weapons, and we, as scientists who speak the worldwide language of science, have an opportunity to prevent this.
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From page 60... ...
Chemical companies also received calls for many perceived antiterrorist materials such as filters, Tyvex, Nomex, Evacuate, and Kevlar, and pharmaceutical companies received calls for vaccines. The industry began to investigate who was buying these products and whether the products would meet the customers' needs.
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From page 61... ...
These sensors have already been integrated into production plants, but not yet into office building monitoring. Many chemical companies produce decontamination agents.
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From page 62... ...
After looking to their own internal safety, companies want to contribute to the homeland defense effort. There is a lot to be gained from industry's scientific knowledge, culture of safety, role in society, science technology, and manufacturing.
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From page 63... ...
Biological toxins, chemical agents that are often overlooked, may also be difficult to use, but if used correctly can wreak much more havoc. Inhaling a single microgram of botulinum toxin is deadly, compared to a lethal dose by ingestion of 1 milligram for sarin and other agents.
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From page 64... ...
A change of inside air for outside air needs to occur once every half hour. If the change occurs every few minutes for the circulating air, it would reduce the amount of biological agent that reaches a person inside a building by a factor of 10.
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From page 65... ...
A water supply system may be contaminated at the raw water source, at the water treatment plant, or in the distribution system. Contamination of the raw water source is easily accomplished since it is usually at a location far from the service area.
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From page 66... ...
There are many agents that can cause serious health consequences or death when introduced into a water system. This has been summarized well by Burrows.2 A rough classification of the agents might be chemical warfare agents, biological agents (protozoa, bacteria, viruses)
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From page 67... ...
The previously mentioned 1970 WHO publication sets the calculations for contaminating a water supply. It assumes an infectious dose of 106 organisms in a glass of water (200 mL)
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From page 68... ...
Chow Caliper Technologies Corporation The recent development of microfluidics technology has mainly been driven by the need to miniaturize, integrate, and automate biochemical analyses to increase speed and throughput and reduce costs. These advantages can provide significant benefits to many applications for national security and homeland defense, including rapid detection and analysis of biological and chemical warfare agents and facilitating the development of therapeutics against these agents.
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From page 69... ...
For the research instrumentation market, the Agilent 2100 instrument and LabChip™ DNA sizing application were the first microfluidics products, introduced in 1999.7 In the DNA sizing application, gel electrophoresis is performed in the microchip for up to 12 samples placed into the reagent wells. The samples are serially injected into the gel-filled separation channel, and a fluorescent intercalation dye is used to stain the DNA fragments.
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From page 70... ...
The rep-PCR technology is based on the discovery that repetitive sequences are interspersed throughout the DNA of all bacteria studied to date. The spacing between these repetitive sequences varies among bacterial isolates because their DNA is different.
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From page 71... ...
Such technology has possible application for antidotes for chemical and biological weapons. For other national security and homeland defense applications, specific requirements will no doubt impose new technological challenges and motivate new innovations in the field of microfluidics.
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From page 72... ...
Vannevar Bush (an MIT electrical engineer) helped to convince the United States government in the early stages of the Second World War that the government should broaden its approach: instead of just issuing specific contracts to certain government-corporate labs or to a few universities for specific tasks, the United States should broaden the approach and take a more long-term view with more grant-like support to corporate and university labs.
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From page 73... ...
Developments in laser physics have led to new types of eye surgery, the science of polymers has led to new fibers and artificial human skin tissue, and basic research in genetics has led to many beneficial applications in medicine and agriculture. In this post World War IICold War period, basic long-term research was understood to be good for the country to ensure immediate applications to specific defense projects.
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From page 74... ...
It was the need of national security that kept the research engine going. More broadly, this new, widespread faith in science and technology and its successes on the military front led to the creation of something called the National Defense Education Act of 1958.
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From page 75... ...
The National Defense Education Act fell into disrepair. Even scientific research, especially basic research, was under great threat and question.
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From page 76... ...
Another characteristic of the post-Cold War period, 1989 to about now, but pre-September 11, is that corporate/university partnerships were supposed to
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From page 77... ...
They're everywhere, and the topics of this workshop represent many of them. Water supplies, biological agents, exotic explosives, transport of airborne pathogens, security of chemical plants, use of nuclear waste for harm, civil structures, and so forth.
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From page 78... ...
There is so much going on out there in university labs, national labs, and corporate labs, that just doing the inventory of all the potentially applicable science and technology that' s out there is going to be difficult. How do we coordinate this work to go forward from where we are when there are many disciplines involved and also many entities?
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From page 79... ...
There is also a strong need for people with advanced capabilities in foreign languages and deep understanding of history, other cultures, and some social sciences. The National Defense Education Act seems to have been needed even at the depths of the Cold War, 1958 to 1970, which I think is roughly when it ended.
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From page 80... ...
80 APPENDIX D satisfy the immediate needs for devices and substances to assure the safety and stability of society. There are many, many examples of the fruits of basic research, and I think the NAS publication series "Beyond Discovery" is something that we have to get out into the hands of journalists and the general public so that they understand.
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From page 81... ...
The ability to further perform tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) analysis when a compound is detected to confirm the detection virtually eliminates false positive and negative alarms.
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From page 82... ...
One instrument included in the publication is a portable, handheld, ion mobility spectrometry chemical agent monitor with moderate to high selectivity, but only when used in open spaces, far from vapor sources such as smoke, cleaning compounds, and fumes. This would seem to make it useless in the battlefield.
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From page 83... ...
The skepticism of the chemical community can truly provide a service to the nation.
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From page 84... ...
, if the ions are focused properly, it is theoretically possible to obtain up to 100 percent detection efficiency. A wide range of analyses can be detected, from very small organic or inorganic molecules to proteins and macromolecules, and mass spectrometry can offer both molecular weight and structural information on species in single particles very rapidly.
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From page 85... ...
These methods enable size selection down to 3 nm. Another important technology in the national security and homeland defense arena is ion trap secondary ion mass spectrometry.
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From page 86... ...
Whether the operator is a scientist or a soldier, analytical technology must become portable. For time-of-flight mass spectrometry, this is an especially difficult challenge, as it is the long flight tubes that enable the high resolution to be obtained.
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From page 87... ...
Many of the historic decontamination formulations that are still in use today are being replaced. The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration's Chemical and Biological National Security Program was initiated in fiscal year 1997 with the objective of developing technologies and methodologies to respond to domestic terrorist attacks that use chemical and biological agents.
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From page 88... ...
The Sandia Decon Foam has very low toxic and corrosive properties and provides a single decontamination solution for both chemical and biological agents. Decontamination of the Capitol Hill office buildings was a learning experience for our nation.
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From page 89... ...
First, we need noncorrosive decontamination formulations and technologies for use on sensitive equipment and items as well as methods to decontaminate hard-to-reach places like air ducts. Fundamental issues like the number of anthrax spores necessary for infection and how clean is clean should be investigated.
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From page 90... ...
What evidence will be admissible in court? Finally, regulatory issues will also come into play in establishing standard test methods to determine the efficacy of and give approval to sensors and decontamination formulations for chemical and biological agents.
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From page 91... ...
So today, I'm going to talk about the gadgets based on microfluidics that my research group is making. I hope that this talk sparks your imagination and helps you to envision ways that microfluidics can help in the area of national security and homeland defense.
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From page 92... ...
I am sure that this technology is useful in many ways to chemists and chemical engineers and can help in the arena of national security and homeland defense.
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From page 93... ...
Biosynthetic engineering has recently been exploited in antibacterial drug discovery, but can also be applied to anticancer drugs, antiviral drugs, and others. Kosan Biosciences was formed almost 6 years ago, founded on an interest in polyketides, microbial metabolite-based drugs.
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From page 94... ...
By manipulating the active sites or modules of the polyketide synthase, the alkyl groups could be taken out or changed, the oxidation state of the hydroxyls or the ketone could be changed, or the length and size of the lactone ring could be changed. Although many variations of the synthesis were attempted, none developed a better antibacterial drug than the existing erythromycin.
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From page 95... ...
Although we cannot predict drug efficacy, drug production is more approachable using the technology of microbial metabolism modification and structure-function information for bacterial ribosomes.
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From page 96... ...
Further development in the areas of in-line analytical and microchip technology would be useful for rapid drug development. In a national emergency, the pharmaceutical industry could be called upon to bring a medication to market, to a commercial scale, very quickly.
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From page 97... ...
Commonly, automated systems are technologies that sit underutilized in chemical laboratories. Chemical engineers are lacking in-depth knowledge of organic chemistry and particular spectroscopic methods, which are essential in modern industry.
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From page 98... ...
In conclusion, research is needed for the improvement of automated tools, handling of solids, modeling and computational tools, and in-line analytical technology. To speed the scale-up of pharmaceuticals in a national emergency, these issues must be addressed by both chemists and chemical engineers.
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