Bioterror research spurs ideas in medicine

Boston-area scientists are developing a sensor capable of sounding an early alarm about acts of bioterrorism, a paperback-sized device that would be integrated into ventilation systems to detect trace amounts of anthrax, ricin, and other potentially lethal toxins.

The technology has proved so promising that the federal government has quietly entered into a $2.1 million contract to aid in development of the detector, designed to monitor the air in office buildings, malls, even subways.

And in an illustration of scientific cross-pollination becoming more common in Boston and nationally, the same technology is about to be tested as a way to diagnose disease. It would represent a back-to-the-future approach to the practice of medicine: A century ago, doctors routinely sniffed the breath of patients to identify illness. The new device relies on the same concept.

The adaptation of a bioterrorism sensor for potential use in the doctor's office is partly the product of serendipity. It also reflects a new reality: Scientists who once stayed in their own specialties are swapping ideas with researchers from distant disciplines, encounters often facilitated by research centers and new academic departments established to mine ideas at the intersection of fields.

''We're beginning to train a whole generation of people who think this way, who think about how to combine engineering with biological sciences to come up with novel ways of solving problems," said Cristina Davis, group leader for bioengineering at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge and chief scientist in the development of the bioterrorism sensor. ''This is really powerful."

It is a change borne of scientific curiosity as well as an opportunity for profiting from invention. Where academic researchers once saw only pure science, they now see spinoff biotech companies.

''With the rise of that industrial track and the consequent rise of seeing a lot of colleagues make money, that becomes something that has a greater presence in the mind," said Jon D. Goguen, a University of Massachusetts Medical School microbiologist.

It was the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology in Cambridge that connected the scientists developing the bioterrorism sensor with Dr. Thomas Stair, an emergency room doctor intrigued by the notion of analyzing patients' breath to diagnose illness. He had fiddled unsuccessfully with his own technique for doing that years before.

So when he happened to attend a meeting at the center, known as CIMIT, and heard researchers describe the sensor, ''the proverbial light bulb went off," Stair said. The result: Brigham and Women's Hospital plans to begin a study this summer of whether the sensor can pinpoint when patients are suffering from diabetes, a heart attack, a lung infection, or some other medical condition by analyzing gases in their breath.

The sensor technology was pioneered in the 1980s by Soviet engineers who used a clunky version to identify the chemical components of laboratory samples. It was the 1990s before a scientist from Draper, Raanan Miller, recognized the potential of miniaturizing the device.

That technology assumed new relevance after anthrax-laden letters arrived in newsrooms and a Senate office building in the fall of 2001. Five people died and 17 were sickened, spurring a hunt for ways of detecting biological agents. Without an early warning system, the first evidence that terrorists have struck can come hours or days later, when victims begin going to emergency rooms.

''Biological weapons let you get away with the crime," said Dr. Michael Callahan, director of the biodefense program at CIMIT. ''They don't go off with a bang. They go off with a hiss. It's heralded with a sneeze or cough or fever or itchy eyeballs."

Brought together under the umbrella of CIMIT, researchers from Draper, Massachusetts General Hospital, and other academic, public, and private entities began working in 2002 to refine the sensor so that it could detect bioterrorism agents.

The device samples air drawn through heating and cooling systems. Fine, airborne particles are broken down into their molecular building blocks, with electrical charges placed on those molecules so that they can be recognized by the detector. Then, the charged components travel across a tiny electrical field tuned to allow only potentially threatening agents to reach the end.

When one of the suspect molecules makes it through, the sensor compares it with molecular fingerprints of rogue agents stored in its computer. If a match is made, an alarm sounds.

More primitive sensors exist, but federal agencies have long hungered for better technology. The Technical Support Working Group, a government office with representatives from the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and others, awarded the Boston-area scientists a contract in March to continue development of the sensor.

Officials from the Working Group, who spoke on condition that they not be identified because of the sensitive nature of their work, said the device was appealing because its development was already advanced and because designers promised to produce a detector that could sell for less than $2,500. Price is important, they said, because they want technology that will be used widely.

The scientists working on the sensor said tests show it can successfully identify three harmless strains of bacteria that are cousins of anthrax. In the future, they will try it on anthrax. Under terms of the federal contract, the Boston team is expected to have a detector ready for field testing by late 2005.

A researcher not involved in the sensor work, who is skeptical about its potential, cautioned that false alarms are a problem for even exceptionally good detectors and could prevent widespread adoption of the technology.

''If the alarm goes off, what's the chance there really is this dangerous agent in the environment?" said Michael A. Stoto, associate director for public health at the RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security.

Stoto questioned the practicality of sensor systems, arguing that a terrorist could circumvent them. Instead, he advocated investing in surveillance networks to swiftly identify outbreaks of unusual illness in patients by monitoring every cough, sniffle, and stomachache reported to emergency rooms and physician offices.

Even as the sensor technology is being examined for its usefulness in detecting bioterrorism, another trial is set to start a few miles away, at Brigham and Women's. There, Stair will get a chance to test his theory that a patient's breath is a window into the rest of the body.

''I know there are some characteristic smells," Stair said. ''I can smell if somebody is on the Atkins diet. Same thing with somebody who is diabetic."

Diabetics, for instance, can have a fruity tinge to their breath, an effect related to compounds known as ketones. A different kind of ketone is found in patients suffering heart attacks. Lab tests have shown that the sensor can detect ketones in extremely small concentrations.

About 500 patients who come into the emergency room complaining of chest pains or lung infections will be asked to blow into balloons, with the contents analyzed by the sensor.

''If you had a portable, real-time analysis system for pulmonary infectious diseases, and it was small and rapid, then you could make a real difference for patients," said Davis.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.