- Hello Jeff - What are they trying to say here...?
-
- "The deadly bacterial spores mailed to victims in
the US anthrax attacks, scientists say, share a chemical 'fingerprint'
that is not found in bacteria from the flask linked to Bruce Ivins,
the biodefence researcher implicated in the crime."
-
- "At the American Society for Microbiology's Biodefense
and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on
24 Feb 2009, Joseph Michael, a materials scientist at Sandia National
Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, presented analyses of 3
letters sent to the New York Post and to the offices of Senators
Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. Spores from 2 of those show a distinct
chemical signature that includes silicon, oxygen, iron, and tin;
the 3rd letter had silicon, oxygen, iron, and possibly also tin,
says Michael. Bacteria from Ivins' RMR-1029 flask did not contain
any of those 4 elements."
-
- Patty
-
- Date: Wed 25 Feb 2009
- Source: Nature News [edited]
-
- Anthrax Investigation Still Yielding Findings
-
- By Reberta Kwok
-
-
- The deadly bacterial spores mailed to victims in the
US anthrax attacks, scientists say, share a chemical 'fingerprint'
that is not found in bacteria from the flask linked to Bruce Ivins,
the biodefence researcher implicated in the crime.
-
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleges that
Ivins, who committed suicide last July [2008], was the person responsible
for mailing letters laden with _Bacillus anthracis_ to news media
and congressional offices in 2001, killing 5 people and sickening
17. The FBI used genetic analyses to trace the mailed spores back
to a flask called RMR-1029, which Ivins could access in his laboratory
at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
(USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
-
- At the American Society for Microbiology's Biodefense
and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on
24 Feb 2009, Joseph Michael, a materials scientist at Sandia National
Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, presented analyses of 3
letters sent to the New York Post and to the offices of Senators
Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. Spores from 2 of those show a distinct
chemical signature that includes silicon, oxygen, iron, and tin;
the 3rd letter had silicon, oxygen, iron, and possibly also tin,
says Michael. Bacteria from Ivins' RMR-1029 flask did not contain
any of those 4 elements.
-
- The chemical mismatch doesn't necessarily mean that deadly
spores used in the attacks did not originate from Ivins' RMR-1029
flask, says Jason Bannan, a microbiologist and forensic examiner
at the FBI's Chemical Biological Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia.
The RMR-1029 culture was created in 1997, and the mailed spores could
have been taken out of that flask and grown under different conditions,
resulting in varying chemical contents. "It doesn't surprise
me that it would be different," he says. The data suggest that
spores for the 3 letters were grown using the same process, says
Michael. It is not clear how tin and iron made their way into the
culture, he says. Bannan suggests that the growth medium may have
contained iron and tin may have come from a water source.
-
- Two cultures of the same anthrax strain [both Ames -
Mod.MHJ] grown using similar processes -- one from Ivins' lab, the
other from a US Army facility in Utah -- showed [a] silicon-oxygen
signature but did not contain tin or iron.
-
- The [ASM] meeting offered scientists who collaborated
with the FBI during the investigation an opportunity to share detailed
data. The analyses will eventually be published in peer-reviewed
journals, the FBI has said.
-
- Jacques Ravel, a genomics scientist at the University
of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, described his team's
efforts to find genetic differences between various cultures of the
Ames strain, the _B. anthracis_ strain identified in the anthrax
letters. At first, the team was surprised to find that the DNA sequences
of a reference Ames strain and Ames samples from the investigation,
such as bacteria isolated from the spinal fluid of the 1st victim,
were exactly the same.
-
- For help, the researchers turned to variants found [in
the letters] by a team at USAMRIID. Patricia Worsham and her colleagues
had noticed differences in shape, colour, and rate of spore formation
even within a single anthrax culture. Ravel's team identified the
genetic mutations associated with 4 variants and developed an assay
for one of them, called Morph E. Researchers at Commonwealth Biotechnologies
in Richmond, Virginia, and the Midwest Research Institute's Florida
Division in Palm Bay created assays for [the] 3 other variants.
-
- The FBI then used that arsenal of tests to pin down the
origins of the anthrax letters, matching the mix of genetic variants
in the mailed spores to Ivins' RMR-1029 flask. "It has the genetic
signatures that identify it as the most likely source of the growth,"
says Bannan.
-
- Ravel also sequenced the genome of a _Bacillus subtilis_
strain that was found in one of the letters. That sample did not
match a _B. subtilis_ strain found in Ivins' lab, says Bannan, but
the bacterial contamination still could have come from somewhere
else in Ivins' institution [that is, USAMRIID].
-
- The FBI has asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
to convene an independent panel of experts to review the anthrax
investigation data. The academy is still in the process of drawing
up a contract with the FBI that lays out an agreement to perform
the study, says NAS spokeswoman Christine Stencel.
-
- Thomas DeGonia, Ivins' lawyer at Venable LLP in Rockville,
Maryland, maintains Ivins' innocence.
-
- http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090225/full/news.2009.120.html
-
-
- --
- Communicated by:
- Dave Altimari
- <mailto:DAltimari@courant.com>DAltimari@courant.com
-
- [The tin and iron were not in the mix in the RMR-1029
flask, nor was silicon. And the flask contents date from 1997. A
lot can happen in 4-5 years (1997-2001).
-
- RMR-1029 was a conglomeration of 13 production runs of
spores by Dugway, for USAMRIID, and an additional 22 production runs
of spore preparations at USAMRIID that were all pooled into this
mixture. It was a total of over 164 liters of spore production, concentrated
down to about a liter. Source: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/AnthraxRoundtableAnnotated.html#RMR-1029>
-
- RMR-1029 was a one-time operation to create a "gold
standard" for vaccine testing. Many precautions would have been
taken in those preparations, but due to the unusual size of the production
runs the 4 mutations appeared. - Mod MHJ]
-
- ******
- [2]
- Date: Fri 27 Feb 2009
- Source: New Scientist [edited]
- http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126974.100-revealed-scientific-
- evidence-for-the-2001-anthrax-attacks.html
-
-
- Revealed: scientific evidence for the 2001 anthrax attacks
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------
-
- Key forensic evidence in the US anthrax attacks of 2001
has been revealed. The FBI had previously prevented the scientists
involved from speaking publicly about their findings in case this
interfered with court proceedings, but last August [2008], after
chief suspect Bruce Ivins committed suicide, the case collapsed and
the FBI lifted many of the restrictions. This week [24 Feb 2009],
some of the scientists involved revealed their results at a scientific
meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.
-
- These show how the FBI traced the spores used in the
attacks to a single flask at a US government lab, but they don't
explain why the FBI made Ivins -- who worked at the US Army Medical
Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) -- the chief
suspect.
-
- In late 2001, envelopes containing dry anthrax spores
were sent to a number of US media outlets and politicians, leading
to 5 deaths. Later that year, Paul Keim at the Northern University
of Arizona in Flagstaff identified the anthrax bacterium used in
the attack as the US army's 'Ames' strain. The FBI then obtained
1072 anthrax samples from the 18 labs it knew to have Ames and got
several research groups, including Keim's, to compare their genomes
with that of the strain used in the attacks. The hope was this would
uncover mutations that would finger one lab as the source.
-
- But Keim and his colleagues told the Baltimore meeting
that initial reports that useful mutations had been found were misleading.
The full genome sequences revealed "no genetic differences at
all," says Keim. Instead, the researchers say, the key clues
came from a lucky discovery. A technician, also at USAMRIID, had
noticed patches of unusual-looking spores in cultures of the attack
anthrax, and recultured just those. Keim and colleagues sequenced
their genomes and found 10 mutations that differed from the common
Ames sequence. Because the spores made up a fraction of the total,
these "minority" mutations hadn't shown up initially.
-
- Next the team developed highly sensitive tests to screen
all 1072 samples for 4 of the mutations. Eight samples had all 4
[mutations]. One came from a flask labelled RMR-1029 that Ivins was
responsible for at USAMRIID. The other 7 came from cultures taken
from that flask, only one of which was not located at USAMRIID. So
while these findings show the attack spores came from one of these
cultures, the FBI has gone further in concluding the attack came
directly from the RMR-1029 flask.
-
- Another question is how the attacker turned the water-based
slurry of spores in the flask to the fine, dry powder in the letters.
-
- Joseph Michael of the Sandia National Lab in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, used specialised electron microscopy to show that 75
per cent of the attack spores had incorporated silicon into their
coats while growing . As spores taken directly from RMR-1029
following the attacks had no silicon in their coats, and the other
7 genetic matches had either none or a lower percentage, the attack
spores must have been recultured before they were posted.
-
- During this process, they would have shed their coats,
multiplied, then turned back into spores. Was Ivins's level of expertise
needed to turn these recultured spores into dry powder? Michael's
images show the attack anthrax contained spore clumps, unlike professionally
produced powders.
-
- The FBI may have evidence to show Ivins was the link
between RMR-1029 and the envelopes, though with civil suits from
Ivins' and the victims' families pending, the bureau won't be revealing
it soon. For now, the researchers say their studies nail the spores
as coming from the flask, but not the identity of the attacker.
- Byline: Debora MacKenzie
-
- --
- Communicated by:
- Dave Altimari
- DAltimari@courant.com
-
- [It will be interesting to see what the FBI's conclusive
evidence is directly linking Bruce Ivins to the letter products.
The latter contained 65-75 per cent of the spores with Si in their
spore coats, not 75 per cent as reported by MacKenzie. The USAMRIID
test culture had only 6 per cent and a Dugway product 30 per cent;
both had been grown on Leighton-Doi media. An interesting paper by
WG Murrell, "Chemical composition of spores & spore structures",
in 'The Bacterial Spore', eds GW Hurst & A Hurst, Academic Press,
NY, 1969, reported the Si content by dry weight in a range of spores
with a mean value of 0.53 per cent, maximum 1.2 per cent and minimum
0.2 per cent. The existing literature would indicate that high values
of Si in spores is unusual, if not exceptional.
-
- In conclusion, the attack spores, somehow derived from
RMR-1029, must have been recultured before they were processed and
posted if they had such a high Si presence, and also to have acquired
iron and tin, neither of which were/are in the RMR-1029 spores. -
Mod.MHJ]
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also my
new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health
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