U. OF C. CHEMIST RESEARCHING BIOWEAPON DETECTION

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U. OF C. CHEMIST RESEARCHING BIOWEAPON DETECTION
03 July 2002 - University of Chicago

We've become distressingly familiar with the otherworldly sight of technicians dressed like astronauts prowling inside a building they suspect contains anthrax spores.

Researchers nationwide are working to replace those suited-up technicians with tiny sensors that can be placed inside building ventilation shafts to sniff out anthrax and other deadly agents of biowarfare.

If that isn't futuristic enough, here's a Borg-like twist: The sensors will contain living cells that produce an enzyme, thereby signaling an alert, when the cells are infected by a biowarfare agent.

The sensors are being designed to constantly monitor air and water, and report in real time to a computer, in much the same way temperature-control systems work now.

One of the researchers at the forefront of the bioweapon detection research is Milan Mrksich, a 33-year-old chemistry professor at the University of Chicago who grew up in southwest suburban Justice.

His work aims to integrate living cells with microcomputers to take advantage of cells' unique ability to respond to any biowarfare agent, whether it is anthrax, smallpox, bacteria or a virus.

The end result is a lab-on-a-chip sensor that can instantly process samples of biowarfare agents.

"Cells are so sophisticated, they carry out many functions we still don't know how to engineer," said Mrksich, who was recently named one of Technology Review magazine's "100 Young Innovators Who Will Create the Future."

Though the organic-laced sensors aren't likely to be affordable enough for widespread use for another 10 years, they are expected to play an important role in an increasingly dangerous world.

A widely known incident involving a chemical agent happened in 1995 with the release of deadly sarin nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system by members of a religious cult obsessed with the apocalypse. Twelve people died and more than 5,000 were sent to hospitals.

"Many of the biowarfare agents won't threaten entire cities, but we will face a steady threat of exposure to biowarfare agents that may affect 100 people at a time," Mrksich said.

"What's scary is that, unlike an attack with an explosive, attacks with biowarfare agents are invisible and don't become clear until some days later," said Mrksich, who serves on government advisory boards that deal with bioweaponry.

"That's one of the major reasons to develop sensor technologies that can constantly monitor, so we know when and where a biowarfare exposure has happened," Mrksich said.

The research is slated to be housed in the $180 million Interdivisional Research building, the most expensive in the university's history, when construction is completed in 2095.

http://www-uchicago.edu

About: University of Chicago
The University of Chicago was founded in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. The land for the new university, in the recently annexed suburb of Hyde Park, was donated by Marshall Field, owner of the Chicago department store that bears his name.

In 1929, Robert Hutchins became the University's fifth president. During his tenure, Hutchins established many of the undergraduate curricular innovations that the University is known for today. These included a curriculum dedicated specifically to interdisciplinary education, comprehensive examinations instead of course grades, courses focused on the study of original documents and classic works, and an emphasis on discussion, rather than lectures.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the University began to add modern buildings to the formerly all-Gothic campus.

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