Yikes - as an engineer that reads widely it strikes me that the final stages of preparation would not actually be that hard. I won't go into details, but ...
In particular, for separating the clumps of bacterium there are numerous 'washing' processes commonly used in different aspects of biotechnology that would do the job.
The hardening process of anthrax bacteria into spores strikes me as being not that hard if you merely follow the natural process. i.e. gradually deprive the bacteria of moisture, nutrients (don't want to shock them too hard). That's why they evolved that natural state of existence in the first place. If the bacteria were washed and stored in liquid suspension in a particular way then I can think of a number of ways that they could then be gradually dried that would allow this to happen. I agree it's not easy - but there are industrial processes that do similar.
Of course, another tack is to change the delivery mechanism so you can make sure the bacteria are ingested or inhaled while still in a nutrient-rich liquid. That way you don't need to harden them into spores.
Also, to obtain a strain of anthrax I'd probably look through reports of where anthrax is common today globally and silently trot off to one of those countries to collect a sample (India or an African country probably). Much easier (and quieter) than digging up soil in an area of the US where anthrax was previously reported and you would draw attention. Even easier would probably be to slip a thousand bucks to a health official in one of these developing countries where it is endemic. Of course, you might argue that a good way to get spores would be to hang around major media company offices these days (that's not a joke).
I'm a little more worried about this now - and starting to think that the fellow on TV who claimed only a handful of people had the skills was either delivering propaganda or has very low expectations of Joe Engineer/Jill Biotechnologist. I think with a budget of $50,000, some practical lab skills and a few years of engineering experience, this project would only take a couple of years. Certainly no harder than many PhD projects I have seen (which are actually not that hard - don't live under any delusions). Major component of the recipe would be patience.
We'll be seeing more of this - and I hope as a country we devise a good punishment that will fit the crime. At this point it's going to be all about deterrence.
After all, if we're scratching our heads trying to work out if it's actually illegal then we can't claim to have a good deterrent in place yet can we? It just hasn't been taken seriously until now.
Patrick
In particular, for separating the clumps of bacterium there are numerous 'washing' processes commonly used in different aspects of biotechnology that would do the job.
The hardening process of anthrax bacteria into spores strikes me as being not that hard if you merely follow the natural process. i.e. gradually deprive the bacteria of moisture, nutrients (don't want to shock them too hard). That's why they evolved that natural state of existence in the first place. If the bacteria were washed and stored in liquid suspension in a particular way then I can think of a number of ways that they could then be gradually dried that would allow this to happen. I agree it's not easy - but there are industrial processes that do similar.
Of course, another tack is to change the delivery mechanism so you can make sure the bacteria are ingested or inhaled while still in a nutrient-rich liquid. That way you don't need to harden them into spores.
Also, to obtain a strain of anthrax I'd probably look through reports of where anthrax is common today globally and silently trot off to one of those countries to collect a sample (India or an African country probably). Much easier (and quieter) than digging up soil in an area of the US where anthrax was previously reported and you would draw attention. Even easier would probably be to slip a thousand bucks to a health official in one of these developing countries where it is endemic. Of course, you might argue that a good way to get spores would be to hang around major media company offices these days (that's not a joke).
I'm a little more worried about this now - and starting to think that the fellow on TV who claimed only a handful of people had the skills was either delivering propaganda or has very low expectations of Joe Engineer/Jill Biotechnologist. I think with a budget of $50,000, some practical lab skills and a few years of engineering experience, this project would only take a couple of years. Certainly no harder than many PhD projects I have seen (which are actually not that hard - don't live under any delusions). Major component of the recipe would be patience.
We'll be seeing more of this - and I hope as a country we devise a good punishment that will fit the crime. At this point it's going to be all about deterrence.
After all, if we're scratching our heads trying to work out if it's actually illegal then we can't claim to have a good deterrent in place yet can we? It just hasn't been taken seriously until now.
Patrick
