Professor discusses dangers of anthrax, difficulties of production

The recent national and local anthrax scares — including the incidents of multiple letters containing anthrax postmarked in West Trenton and Monday night's scare at the Frist Campus Center — have brought to light the ease with which the substance can be produced and used as an agent of bio-terrorism.

It has also prompted a flurry of citizens and University students to seek more information about its effects.

University molecular biology professor Bonnie Bassler, a specialist in pathogens, said that producing small, or even large, quantities of anthrax is not very difficult.

"A person with some microbiology skills could grow it in a flask," Bassler said. "It's not hard."

Bassler continued that students who work in molecular biology laboratories on campus are often given projects in which they grow cultures of microorganisms, sometimes after only having taken an entry-level biology course.

The bacteria that causes anthrax — bacillus anthracis — was originally discovered in sheep skin long before there was the threat of biochemical warfare, Bassler said. Shepherds would often find themselves feeling sick but were, at first, unable to identify the cause. Only recently have measures been taken to prevent distribution and production of the bacteria.

"Up until about six years ago, there weren't strict laws in place to prevent people from [obtaining] it," she explained. "It wasn't hard to get."

The principal difficulty in using the anthrax bacteria as a form of mass terrorism lies in the spores, which the bacteria use for travel and reproduction. In order to be most effective as a killing agent, the bacteria would need to be ground small enough so the spores would float in the air, a task that is nearly impossible to do without destroying the spores and thus killing the bacteria.

Though it has only recently become a cause of public alarm, anthrax has been a subject of interest for doctors and biologists for years.

"People have studied it before to try to understand its method of virulence," Bassler noted.

Once it has entered a person's system, the bacteria will release a toxin that causes one of three types of infections in the victim, depending on where the bacteria infiltrates the body. Cutaneous infections occur in the skin, inhalation infections in the respiratory system and gastrointestinal infections within the digestive system.

Anthrax is dangerous, Bassler said, not because of an inability to kill the bacteria, which are easily treated with antibiotics like Cipro or doxycycline, but rather the potency of the toxin that they release. "Even if the antibiotics kill the bacteria, the toxins are still in place," she explained, adding that this is what causes the real damage.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

There is a fair amount of research, Bassler explained, devoted to finding treatments and solutions to the anthrax problem and to coming up with a way to combat a large-scale outbreak in case such a situation were to arise.

The University does not work with anthrax in any capacity, Bassler added.

"I don't think these days it's used for anything other than what you read about in the newspapers," she said, adding that it is illegal to work with anthrax bacteria in the United States for any function other than researching prevention methods.