Title: Timely multithreat biological, chemical and nuclide detection: a platform, a metric, key results

Authors: Mark S. Derzon, Matthew M. Hopkins, Paul C. Galambos, Komandoor E. Achyuthan, Chris J. Bourdon, Igal Brener, Conrad D. James, Jaime L. McClain, David W. Peterson, Kamyar Rahimian, Jerylin A. Timlin, James S. Cullor, Michael D. Kaminski, Vickie M. Peck, Edward F. Spink, C. Steven Yun, George V. Ludwig

Addresses: Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA. ' University of California at Davis, Tulare, CA 93274, USA. ' Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA. ' Bio-Logic, LLC, Placitas, NM 87043, USA. ' TurboSonic, Inc., Parsippany, NJ 07054, USA. ' Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1425, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA; Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390, USA. ' United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Frederick, MD 21702, USA

Abstract: Terrorism has been called |war in the 21st century| (Barnett). Metrics are needed to quantify changes in threat state as well as system design trade-offs that weight the time required for accurate identification against the threat detection sensitivity. We present an adaptable agent-detection-platform capable of sensing multiple threat agents (chemical, biological and nuclear) simultaneously in diverse media and a performance model of this detection platform. A performance metric |Time-To-Identify| (TTI); the time required to identify the presence of a given target analyte is presented. Experimental results that illustrate the new technologies required by this platform are presented. The model and metric predict the detection platform|s sensitivity and speed for several CONcepts of OPeration (CONOP): (1) agent detection (chemical, viral or bacterial) in a 1 ml clinical sample, (2) botulinum toxin detection in milk and (3) pathogen detection in airplane cabin air.

Keywords: multithreat detection; terrorism; biowarfare; biological detection systems; TTI; time-to-identify; threat detection; chemical threats; biological threats; nuclear threats; viral threats; bacterial threats; botulinum toxin detection; milk; pathogen detection; airplane cabin air; terrorist threats.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTTC.2008.021038

International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, 2008 Vol.7 No.4, pp.413 - 435

Published online: 31 Oct 2008 *

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