ABSTRACT
The threat of potential biological warfare (BW) and terrorists’ attacks using biological agents such as pathogens and toxins have received increased attention in recent years [1]. Unlike chemical warfare agents that cause rapid symptoms, biological agents usually takes hours or even days to display any significant symptoms. This slow symptom development to BW agents makes BW attack more frightening. One scenario is that the first observation and subsequent response to symptoms developed from such an attack may be too late because of the delay. One critical step to minimize the damage for human health and environmental contamination from such an attack is a rapid detection and identification of the BW agents used so that timely mitigation measures can be taken. Since such BW attacks can theoretically take place anywhere and at any time, regular field sampling (either battlefield or environmentally important sites) and detection would be ideal to provide timely warning. This type of regular field sampling and detection for either hazardous agents in environments or toxins in humans creates an extremely high need for detection technologies. Ideal detection technologies for such a purpose must be simple, low cost, and fast as well as highly sensitive and specific. Unfortunately, current detection methods cannot meet all the requirements. For instance, although gene probe [2] and immunoassay [3] can provide very sensitive and specific detection, they are intrinsically slow and high cost and are generally not suitable for regular field applications.
