1
Q
true/false fungus is in the news
A
true
2
Q
what are the main criteria of conventional terrorism
A
- violence/ threat of violence
- causes psychological impact
- usually political objective
- selection of civilian targets
- unlawfulness or illegitimacy
3
Q
how does bioterrorism differ from conventional terrorism
A
- use of biological weapons rather than conventional
- same goals as traditional terrorism
4
Q
true/false you always know when a bioterrorism attack has happened
A
- false
- not always an indication
5
Q
what are the motives of a bioterrorist attack
A
- to terrorize
- to implement mass murder/ murder
- incapacitate
- make a political statement
- anti-agriculture statement
- extortion, disruption, revenge
6
Q
which bio aget attack was the most deadly
A
anthrax
7
Q
true/false anthrax is more deadly than a nuclear attack
A
true
8
Q
how does biocrime differ from traditional crime
A
the weapon is a biological agent, not smth physical or a poison
9
Q
true/false there is potential for escalation in biocrime
A
- true
- so its taken seriously
10
Q
true/false poison is a bio agent
A
false
11
Q
true/false biocrime is usually motivated by political and religious purposes
A
- false
- revenge or monetary gain
12
Q
what are some biological agents
A
- pathogens
- toxins
13
Q
what are pathogens
A
- a bio agent
- naturally occurring microorganisms that cause disease
14
Q
what are toxins
A
- a bio agent
- poisonous chemicals produced by a living organism
15
Q
what are some pathogens
A
- viruses
- bacteria
- fungi
- protists
- parasites
16
Q
whats the diff between pathogens and toxins
A
- toxins are not self replicating
- soooo impact is only from the initial spread of the compound
17
Q
bioterrorism agents are separated into ___ categories by who
A
- 3
- CDC
18
Q
bioterrorism agents are separated into 3 categories based on what
A
- how easily they can spread
- the severity of illness or death they cause
19
Q
rank category A, B, C from high to low priority/ risk
A
- highest risk + priority
- A
- B
- C
20
Q
what are some examples of category A agents
A
- anthrax
- botulism
- plague
- ebola
21
Q
what are some examples of category B agents
A
- salmonella
- e coli
- ricin
- Ricin
22
Q
what are some examples of category C agents
A
- emerging pathogens that could be engineered for mass spread in the future
- Nipah/ Hanta virus
23
Q
why use bio agents
A
- acquisition is not a liminiting factor
- relatively inexpensive to produce, store, transport
- difficult to detect
- effect can be hours/ days later (hard to identify attacker)
- spread via air, water, food, human
- some spread human to human and others dont
24
Q
what are the diff modes of dissemination
A
- aerosol
- water
- food
- direct
25
describe aerosol as a mode of dissemination
penetrating the lungs
26
describe water contamination as a mode of dissemination
- *not as effective*
- municipal water supplies designed to remove pathogens
- less vulnerable cause communities filter water
- toxin would be sooooo diluted
27
describe considerations in using food contamination as a mode of dissemination
- cooking (heat) kills most pathogens
- sooo gotta target uncooked food or use a heat-stable toxin
28
what is a main danger of food contamination as a mode of dissemination
- salad bar contamination is so serious
- centralization of food distribution creates opportunity for large scale infection
29
describe direct application as a mode of dissemination
- pathogen or toxin
- some are harmful applied to the skin
30
what are the consequences of bio agent attacks
- no immediate signs
- difficult to distinguish between a bio attack and a natural outbreak
31
what is Aum Shinrikyo
- doomsday cult
- used sarin gas to attack tokyo subwau system
- also did VX gas attacks
32
what are VX gas
- toxic
- colourless
- odourless
- acts on nervous system
- small amounts cause death in minutes
33
briefly describe the Kameido anthrax icident
- this cult thought the US would target japan (kameido, tokyo)
- so they made their own bio agents to counter attack, targetting judges
- once the attacks happened, they started being investigated, and more attack attempts were brought to light
34
describe the first attack attempt that happened in Kameido
- complaints went to health authorities about odours in the leader of the cult's headquarters
- collected fluid off the side of the building
- they later found out it was an attempt to aerosolize anthrax
- the fluid they collected was cultured on blood agar, and 10% of colonies looked like b anthracis
- they all had the same genotype (as found via MLVA)
- the genotype was for a vaccine strain (so unarmed *like a gun w no bullets*)
35
why didnt the Kameido anthrax incident work
- missing pXO2 plasmid contains major virulence factors
- since it was a vaccine strain
36
what does MLVA stand for and what is it
- **multiple locus variable number tandem repeat analysis**
- looks for small repeat regions w sequence variation and only targets a small portion of the genome
37
what does HMRU stand for and what does it do
- **hazardous materials response unit**
- respond to CS involving weapon of mass destruction
- collect and preserve evidence
- coordinate its forensic exploitation
38
what does BPRP stand for and what does it do
- **bioterrorism preparedness and response program**
- *at the CDC, center for disease control*
- identify tech for characterizing microbes
39
what does LRN stand for and what does it do
- **national laboratory response network**
- standardized methods to detect and identify microbes used in bioterrorist and crim events
40
describe the gist of amerithrax
- shortly after 9 11
- a bunch of news outlets got letters
- powder in the letters acted as an aerosol and killed people
- it was the Ames strain of anthrax
- this is a research strain, for vaccines *not* an unknown environmental strain, likely intentional act
- indicated a skilled microbiologist
- found info on the stamps of the letter to find the area it was stamped, and used carbon dating to find when the strain was made
-
41
**true/false** there was a bunch of evidence for the amerithrax case
- **false**
- no licking stamps, fingerprints, basic inc, no surveillance, or indented writing
42
what did they use to find info about the letters in the amerithrax case
1. carbon 14 dating
2. flexographic print defects
3. colony morphology and DNA sequencing
43
describe how colony morphology and DNA sequencing aided the amerithrax case
- most anthrax strains share >99.99% nucleotide sequence similarity
- DNA markers found it was the Ames strain
- but couldn't distinguish between Ames isolates
- Ames originally came from a dead cow
- got lucky, left a plate out in an incubator and were able to see diff morphologies of the colonies
- did PCR to screen for diff varients
- the specific combo of variants and sequences found linked samples to one another cause they were unique
- out of all the Ames samples, 8 derived from this one source *Dr. Bruce Ivins*
44
how would the anthrax letter investigation differ using todays technology
- *they used MLVA. were lucky that reference databases were available to determine its origin*
- *for them, whole genome sequencing was expensive and slow*
- direct DNA sequencing would replace most of what they did
- we'd look for SNPs in genes related to pathogenesis, spore survival, or factors that impact the attack (intentional manipulation)
45
Microbial
flashcards
Decks in class (15)
# Cards
-
Intro45
-
Pandemics and Epidemics23
-
Risk Assessment and Societal Infrastructure99
-
Disease and Microbial Forensics Investigations116
-
4: Organisms- Viruses183
-
5: Organisms: Fungi161
-
6: Organisms: Bacteria121
-
9: Food Security & Agricultural Attack109
-
10: Microbiome Analysis103
-
11: Toxin Analysis & Nucleic Acid Analysis153
-
Sequencing from Lab DNA21
-
12: DNA sequencing, genome assembly, DNA diagnostics84
-
13: Emerging Pathogens118
-
Maybe long answers3
-
Important i think149
