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CNN Live At Daybreak

Anthrax in America: Coming to a Street Corner Near You: Bioterrorism Detectors?

Aired November 01, 2001 - 08:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A closer look now at cutting-edge technology to detect anthrax and other biological agents that could be used for terrorism -- Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve with that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A raid around the Pentagon -- equipment to sniff out biological agents, but it's big, expensive, and requires trained military personnel to run it. So how do we detect a biological attack on civilians?

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Right now, let's face it, we're, essentially using, you and I and everyone else as the canaries in the mine; we are the detectors. To the extent that people become sick, that's how we know we've been attacked.

MESERVE: Researchers in the field of nuclear, biological, and chemical protection -- or NBC -- used to joke the acronym stood for nobody cares. But September 11 changed that.

RICK THOMAS, ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES GROUP: It's a different world, in the sense that the sense of urgency, the sense of need is so much heightened over the past two months.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can look at many different organisms simultaneously.

MESERVE: A huge push is on in government laboratories, universities, and private industry to use DNA technology in the field to identify anthrax, smallpox, and a wide range of other biological agents quickly and relatively cheaply.

RICHARD LANGLOIS, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LAB: This is called the autonomous packaging detector system.

MESERVE: Within a year or two, detectors, like this one, might be deployed.

LANGLOIS: It's a fully automated system that behaves like a smoke alarm, a biological smoke alarm. MESERVE: It continuously monitors the air, pulling out particles for DNA analysis, identifying pathogens. Some day, there might be networks of sensors providing coverage for entire metropolitan areas.

PAGE STOUTLAND, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LAB: A couple of years from now, where we want to be is having autonomous detectors situated throughout the city, and, in a wireless way, beaming back the information.

JOHN SCHMIDT, ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES GROUP: First, you'll notice the keys are large. That's because usually when first- responders would use this, they would be in those big spacesuits.

MESERVE: The technology in this handheld biodetector was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and a private Maryland firm is modifying the design for sale to emergency personnel as early as this summer. A sample is put in solution, inserted, and tested in as little as 10 minutes.

SCHMIDT: Since it looks to the basic building block of light DNA, it can tell with a high degree of confidence what agent you're actually looking at.

MESERVE (on camera): In a decade or less, experts predict that DNA detection technology will be miniaturized even further, into something they call a lab on a chip. It will be so small and so inexpensive that it will be put virtually everywhere, protecting virtually everyone.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

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