Measurement of 100 B. anthracis Ames spores within 15 minutes by SERS at the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Ctr.
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Date of Original Version
1-1-2014
Abstract
Since the distribution of Bacillus anthracis-Ames spores through the US Postal System, there has been a persistent fear that biological warfare agents will be used by terrorists against our military abroad and our civilians at home. While there has been substantial effort since the anthrax attack of 2001 to develop analyzers to detect this and other biological warfare agents, the analyzers remain either too slow, lack sensitivity, produce high false-positive rates, or cannot be fielded. In an effort to overcome these limitations we have been developing a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy system. Here we describe the use of silver nanoparticles functionalized with a short peptide to selectively capture Bacillus anthracis spores and produce SER scattering. Specifically, measurements of 100 B. anthracis-Ames spores/mL in ∼25 minutes performed at the US Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center are presented. The measurements provide a basis for the development of systems that can detect spores collected from the air or water supplies with the potential of saving lives during a biological warfare attack. © 2014 SPIE.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume
9073
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Farquharson, Stuart, Chetan Shende, Wayne Smith, Hermes Huang, Jay Sperry, Todd Sickler, Amber Prugh, and Jason Guicheteau. "Measurement of 100 B. anthracis Ames spores within 15 minutes by SERS at the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Ctr.." Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 9073, (2014). doi: 10.1117/12.2054272.