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Lab Fights Microscopic Enemies ; Lab Fights Tiny Chem-Bio Terrorism

Posted on: Monday, 27 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore lab have launched two new research centers that are concentrating powerful instruments and the science of the vanishingly small on chem-bio defense and biomedicine.

Chiefs of the centers will pull in teams of biologists, physicists, engineers and chemists and put them to work on projects funded by defense and health agencies.

A Biosecurity and Nanosciences Laboratory will explore new devices for detecting biological threats.

As an example Thursday, one of its first teams rolled out BAMS, for BioAerosol Mass Spectrometer, a device slightly larger than a desk trailing a vacuum-like hose.

It sucks up airborne particles, pokes lasers into them and tests the chemicals inside for comparison against a database of signatures.

Scientists hooked the hose up to bottles of various powders and, in roughly a tenth of a second, the screen identified them respectively as: Equal artificial sweetener, foot powder and a mess of bacteria.

Lab officials say such devices, shrunk to the size of a suitcase, could act as a kind of Breathalyzer for germs, deployed at airports, hospitals and borders to detect contagious pathogens.

The lab's new Center for Biotechnology, Biophysical Sciences and Bioengineering will draw from scientists everywhere to work on medical and environmental matters and carry prototype biomedical devices through to commercial use.

Scientists expect its funding will come from private foundations, the National Institutes of Health and the lab itself.

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com .

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