Sensor Systems for Biological Agent Attacks

Over the last ten years, there has been growing concern about potential biological attacks on the nation's population and its military facilities. It is now possible to detect such attacks quickly enough to permit treatment of potential victims prior to the onset of symptoms. The capability to "detect to warn", that is in time to take action to minimize human exposure, however, is still lacking. To help achieve such a capability, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the development path for "detect to warn" sensors systems. This report presents the results of this assessment including analysis of scenarios for protecting facilities, sensor requirements, and detection technologies and systems. Findings and recommendations are provided for the most probable path to achieve a detect-to-warn capability and potential technological breakthroughs that could accelerate its attainment.Table of ContentsFront MatterExecutive Summary1 Background and Overview2 Scenarios, Defensive Concepts, and Detection Architectures3 Indoor and Outdoor Bioaerosol Backgrounds and Sampling Strategies4 Bioaerosol Samplings Systems for Near-Real-Time Detection5 Point and Standoff Detection Technologies6 Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Identification for Detect-to-Warn Applications7 Structure-Based Identification for Detect-to-Warn Applications8 Chemistry-Based Identification for Detect-to-Warn Applications9 Function-Based Detection10 Design Considerations for Detect-to-Warn Defensive Architectures11 Summary of Conlusions and a Path ForwardAppendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee MembersAppendix B Acronyms and Abbreviations