Acton firm tackling maritime security

WASHINGTON -- A small Acton company launched by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor three years ago has been awarded a $1.6 million contract by the federal government to develop what is billed as the world's first scanner capable of determining the contents of large maritime shipping containers and screening for potential terrorist threats within seconds -- without having to open them.

For the past two years, MIT professor William Bertozzi has quietly tackled one of the nation's most vexing homeland security challenges: how to swiftly detect nuclear and other dangerous materials that could be smuggled into the United States aboard a ship. Government officials hope that Bertozzi's patented nuclear resonance fluorescence imaging technology, or NRFI, will help protect what many specialists see as the Achilles' heel in the nation's defense against terrorism: the country's 361 seaports, which handle 7 million cargo containers per year.

''After [Sept. 11, 2001] there was a great need to fill the holes in our national security," Bob Ledoux, CEO of Passport Systems, said in an interview yesterday. ''What happened on 9/11 was terrible, but most studies have shown that when you look at the potential economic damage to our country, a very weak area is the fact that millions of cargo containers go virtually unchecked."

Passport Systems, the four-employee company Bertozzi founded in 2002, has been chosen to build a prototype to track weapons of mass destruction that officials fear could be smuggled through the nation's ports. His team will be given access to small amounts of closely guarded nuclear material to test the technology.

A growing number of universities and small, Boston-area technology firms are receiving attention from homeland security officials scrambling to find innovative, high-tech ways to combat a host of threats, from hidden explosives to biological pathogens.

The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate plans to bring together more than 500 scientists and engineers in Boston later this month to hear their proposals. Governor Mitt Romney is scheduled to convene the two-day conference at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center on April 27 and 28.

A wide array of research labs and companies will be presenting research to homeland security officials during the conference. US Genomics in Woburn will outline some of its work in biological countermeasures. Tufts University researchers will present their solutions for detecting chemical and biological agents. Echo Technologies of Boston will discuss ways to detect biological weapons sprayed from the air. Physical Sciences Inc. of Andover will offer solutions to the task of quickly identifying dangerous aerosols.

''I have been saying for years that it is possible to conduct comprehensive cargo screening without disturbing commerce," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and senior member of the Homeland Security Committee. ''I am pleased that the Department of Homeland Security is funding innovative technology in Massachusetts that can be used to screen for explosives and other dangerous materials.

''It is critical to our national security that we ensure that our passengers and cargo travel safely. We cannot simply trust that this cargo is safe; we must verify that it is free of harmful materials," he said.

Unlike the high-energy X-ray technology most commonly used to examine suspicious packages or containers, the NRFI scanner actually can tell what materials are in cargo containers. The scanner provides more information than an X-ray's black-and-white image of an object's shape and size.

Bertozzi says his scanner can detect every isotope in the periodic table by reading the components of the material's atomic structure -- especially nuclear weapons or explosive radioactive devices known as ''dirty" bombs. It can also identify explosives and chemical agents, he says.

The scanner is designed to examine an 8-by-20-foot cargo container in as little as 20 seconds. ''NRFI identifies these threats by scanning the constituent chemical elements of a cargo container, vehicle, or suitcase," according to a description from the company.

With current scanning technology, ''all you see is the shadow," Bertozzi said in an interview. ''It can be very confusing and not specific as to materials. It depends on the human being interpreting black-and-white images on a screen. It leads to many errors. You then have to open up all those containers and that can lead to significant delays.

Indeed, one of NRFI's most attractive attributes is that it can search containers without having to open them, avoiding a cumbersome process that would lead to costly delays in the flow of commerce.

''The big challenge is, how do we improve screening without undermining our economic throughput," said David Heyman, director of homeland security studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ''It is a challenge. But there are technologies in development that have a lot of promise to provide up to 100 percent screening without 100 percent reduction in throughput."

The contract awarded to Passport Systems ''is for the initial phase in a multiphase program to develop and build a prototype scanner that could be deployed in seaports, borders, and airports worldwide to detect nuclear, radiological, explosive, and chemical devices," according to a company brochure.