-Caveat Lector-
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Dallas O Tohill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Some Good News!
Date sent: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:26:42 -0400
New Agent Destroys Anthrax, Safe For Animals And Environment
>From Patricia
Doyle, PhD [EMAIL PROTECTED] The University of Michigan
9-28-1 SAN DIEGO - BCTP looks like skim milk. Laboratory rats
gain weight
when they eat it. Spray it on your lawn and the grass will thrive.
But
according to tests conducted by University of Michigan scientists,
this
seemingly benign material could be a potent weapon against
anthrax---one of
the deadliest bacteria on Earth.
In a presentation at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial
Agents and
Chemotherapy (ICAAC) on Sept. 26, Michael Hayes, research
associate in the
U-M Medical School, presented experimental evidence of BCTP's
ability to
destroy anthrax spores both in a culture dish and in mice exposed
to anthrax
through a skin incision. James R. Baker Jr., M.D., professor of
internal
medicine and director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology in
the U-M
Medical School, directed the research study.
BCTP was developed by D. Craig Wright, M.D., chief research
scientist at
Novavax, Inc.---a bio-pharmaceutical company in Columbia, Md.---
and
president of Novavax Biologics Division. According to Wright, the
material
is made of water, soybean oil, Triton X 100 detergent and the
solvent
tri-n-butyl phosphate.
"One of the most remarkable characteristics of this material is its
ability
to rapidly destroy a wide variety of dangerous bacteria and viruses,
while
remaining non-toxic to people, animals or the environment," Baker
said.
BCTP's effectiveness against anthrax spores is especially
significant,
because they are so difficult to kill. "Spores are like freeze-dried
bacteria," Baker explained. "Their tough outer coat is resistant to
disinfectants, freezing, drought, virtually anything we can throw at
them.
Spores can survive in the environment for many years and still
generate live
bacteria when given the right combination of water, nutrients and
temperature."
Concentrated doses of strong disinfectants like bleach or
formaldehyde will
kill anthrax spores, according to Baker. Unfortunately, they also
are toxic
to people and the environment, which makes them useless for
decontaminating
a person, a piece of land or equipment exposed to the bacteria.
Since the Persian Gulf War, military authorities have become
increasingly
concerned about the threat anthrax and other biological warfare
agents pose
both to our armed forces and civilian populations. "Anthrax is often
fatal
and easily dispersed through air or water,"
Baker said. "We know that countries hostile to the United States
have
developed strains of anthrax which are resistant to antibiotics and
existing
vaccines. To counter that threat, the Defense Advanced Research
Projects
Agency (DARPA), is testing several possible new weapons against
these
biologic agents---including BCTP."
"When properly formulated, the components in BCTP form an
emulsion of tiny
lipid droplets suspended in solvent," said Wright. "These lipids
fuse with
anthrax spores causing the spore to revert to its active bacterial
state.
During this process, which takes four to five hours, the spore's
tough outer
membrane changes allowing BCTP's solvent to strip away the
exterior
membrane. BCTP's detergent then degrades the spore's interior
contents. In
scanning electron microscope images, the spores appear to
explode."
In his conference presentation, Hayes described how even low
concentrations
of BCTP killed more than 90 percent of virulent strains of Bacillus
anthracis spores in a culture dish. "We observed sporicidal activity
with
dilutions as high as one part BCTP per 1,000 parts culture media,"
Hayes
said.
To determine its toxicity to animals, U-M scientists fed large
amounts of
BCTP to laboratory rats and injected mice with the material
subcutaneously.
The animals gained weight, remained healthy and suffered no
adverse effects.
To determine BCTP's effectiveness at treating animals exposed to
anthrax
spores, Baker's research team subcutaneously injected mice with
Bacillus
cereus---a closely related species of bacteria that can be safely
handled in
a university laboratory setting. Like B. anthracis, its lethal relative,
B.
cereus produces large, ulcerous areas of dead tissue if it
penetrates the
skin through a cut or injury. If untreated, these skin infections
spread
systemically, producing severe illness and death in 80 percent of
the
laboratory mice in the study.
"When we washed the animal's skin lesions with BCTP, the
wounds began to
heal," Baker said. Mice receiving BCTP either simultaneously with
B. cereus
spores or whose wounds were washed with BCTP an hour after
exposure had a 95
percent reduction in lesion size. The death rate for mice receiving
BCTP
was only 20 percent.
"Rapid inactivation of anthrax bacteria and spores combined with
low
toxicity makes BCTP a promising candidate for use as a broad-
spectrum,
post-exposure decontamination agent," Baker said.
In future studies, Baker plans to evaluate BCTP's effectiveness
against
inhaled anthrax spores, as well as other bacteria and enveloped
viruses.
His research has been funded by DARPA's Unconventional
Pathogen
Countermeasures Program. The U-M and Novavax have filed a
patent
application covering BCTP's use as a decontamination agent for
various
anti-microbial applications. Baker is a member of the Novavax
scientific
advisory board, but has no significant financial interest in the
company.
Contact:
Sally Pobojewski Phone: (734) 647-1844
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
News and Information Services News Release 412 Maynard Ann
Arbor, Michigan
48109-1399
WITHOUT VICTORY THERE IS NO SURVIVAL- Les Naghui 2001
------- End of forwarded message -------
--
Best wishes
In some of its more lunatic aspects, political correctness is merely
ridiculous. But in the thinking behind it, there is something more
sinister which is shown by the fact that already there are certain
areas
and topics where freedom of speech, in the sense of the right to
open
and frank discussion, is being gradually but significantly eroded.
~~ Retiring Judge Neil Denison,
quoted by the London Daily Telegraph,
22 March 2001
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