New lab speeds biohazards ID

KENT (AP) -- Kent State University has used a $700,000 federal grant to open a lab that trains students to quickly identify dangerous biological agents in an hour.
The lab will help improve Ohio's response to a bioterrorism attack, said Dr. William Becker, medical director for the Ohio Department of Health's state lab in Columbus.
Workers from private and public labs in the region also will train there.
Christopher Woolverton, a Kent State biology professor and microbiologist, said learning to identify bacteria the old-fashioned way, by growing them in a petri dish, is reliable.
But the method also takes 72 hours -- too long if public health officials are trying to contain attacks using deadly biological pathogens, such as anthrax and smallpox.
Trainees will be taught to quickly identity the agents using DNA detection and microbe counting techniques.
Woolverton said the new lab will not house any deadly pathogens. Instead, students and other trainees will practice with genetic cousins of these biological agents.
The grant was provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.