Homeland Security Speeding Up Bio Attack Detection

Using current technology, it could take the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as long as 36 hours to detect a biological attack on the United States, the agency’s technology chief told U.S. lawmakers in February.

The agency’s goal is to cut that time to four hours, said Tara O’Toole, chief of science and technology at DHS. To do that, O’Toole wants much more sophisticated sensors that would simultaneously collect and analyze air samples.

DHS has installed biological weapon sensors to continuously monitor the air in more than 30 U.S. cities under a program called BioWatch.

The aim is “rapid detection of and response to certain biological aerosols,” O’Toole said.

But the current sensors fall substantially short of “rapid.” They use filters to collect organisms from the air. The filters are then picked up every 24 hours and delivered to laboratories to be analyzed. The whole process can take 36 hours – a lot of time for people to be exposed to anthrax, plague, smallpox or other weaponized germs.

DHS is testing new “generation 3” sensors that are “essentially a lab-in-a-box,” O’Toole said.

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