title: The potential of next-generation microbiological diagnostics to improve bioterrorism detection speed.
abstract: Emerging, rapid, multivalent, microbial diagnostic technologies can produce results in hours, as contrasted to the standard methods that require at least the better part of a week. Used in bioterrorism surveillance in medical settings, the new biodetectors could significantly reduce the time between a covert attack and its detection. By how much is determined by the intensity of sampling. If used to screen all patients reporting flu-like symptoms to their doctors, this basic level of "front-line" sampling would reduce life-threatening medical floundering and missteps and give responders 3-5 days of warning that they otherwise would not have had. Being miniaturized and amenable to mass production, these devices could reduce the cost of screening to a fraction of current costs and so it is tempting to imagine their use in more intensive bioterrorism screening programs aimed at the apparently healthy population, programs that could detect a covert attack even before the victims felt ill. This article examines the tradeoffs between surveillance effort and probability of detection for such programs. Dual-use deployment, where the biodetector provides some medically useful information in addition to bioterrorism surveillance, is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Engineering & Public Policy, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. casman@andrew.cmu.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Casman
mesh_terms: D023482:Bioterrorism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008828:Microbiological Techniques / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D011336:Probability; D012306:Risk; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States