Working to save lives

The University of Northern Iowa is home to the world's only "spore detector" system for anthrax.  Michael Walter, associate professor of biology, and several students use this system to find viruses that bind to anthrax spores.

Walter said the "Spore Detector Project," as he and his financial supporter, the UNI Foundation, call it, has been rewarding in that it "may someday lower the threat of anthrax spores and other agents."

Walter said engineers in Waverly built the control box ‘concept,' but he originally designed it.

According to Walter, the control box puts an air sample that has bacterial viruses in it into the machine. The viruses then bind to the anthrax spores, Bacillus anthracis, if they're present, sometimes even killing them.

"Students work on isolating and characterizing the bacterial viruses to find ones that will work in the anti-anthrax program," Walter said. "They, as of date, have about eight isolates that will bind to Bacillus anthracis.

"Some of the bacterial viruses will kill the bacteria, but all we're interested in is whether the bacterial viruses will bind to the anthrax spores in the detector system," Walter added.

Walter said the project started several years ago, when he began reading up on the anthrax agent.

"We have worked on this since the summer of 1998," Walter said. "A vast majority of the workers were undergraduates, with a couple graduate students helping."

"... It seemed like the area of Bacillus anthracis viruses was not very well studied, so with the encouragement of colleagues, even though I specialized as a plant virologist, I switched hats to work in this area," Walter said.

Walter said the key question was determining how to select which viruses to use.  He said he and his students have to consider factors such as shelf stability and temperature needs.

"We decided to use bacteriophages from the soil because the spores for anthrax come from the soil," Walter said.  "Therefore, most of our bacterial viruses come from the soil."

Walter and the students working on the project have been patenting the viruses they discover, but, as the process is rather complicated, Walter said he has done most of the work on the system itself.  

The machine was tested at biosafety level three in Chicago, which cost about $30,000, according to Walter. He said they use a "safe strain" in their lab.

"When we tested it with real anthrax as opposed to the ‘safe strain,' the viruses acted as we had hoped," Walter said.

Walter said "the diversity of these viruses is amazing."

He said he used an artificial system to select the viruses based on a similar program dealing with salmonella.

"I decided to use soil diversity and grow and select them from the soil until they would be able to work in the machine," Walter said.  "The procedure is known as ‘selection enrichment,' and once we have isolated a virus, we can grow as many as we want."

According to Walter, the next step is to redesign the machine.

"Because this was the first ‘Spore Detector Project' in the world, it was bound to have problems," Walter said.

The process of redesign will cost about $50,000.

Walter said he really enjoys working on the project, but gets more time to do so in the summer. He said students have benefited greatly from the project as well.

"Many students have participated in presentations and have their names on posters and can put this experience on résumés," Walter said. "The coolest is when students, usually graduates, can put their name on publications. It's an entirely different experience than just getting a degree."