From Scientists to Superheroes. . .Seiders discusses biological terror battle
Barbara Seiders
It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientist-turned-superhero combating deadly pathogens using super-powered science and technology!
Bacteria and viruses threaten human health not just on the battlefield and at the hands of terrorists, but also in our air, food and water. Scientists are battling these biological "villains" using innovations created across the Laboratory's research groups.
Research related to defeating biological threats to human health was discussed when Pacific Northwest and Columbia Basin College presented Barbara Seiders in the Community Science and Technology Seminar Series on Wednesday, April 26, in the CBC Theater. Approximately 130 people attended the presentation.
In addition to evil villains and virtuous heroes and heroines, the Seiders' superhero story included plots and subplots, mystery and intrigue, action and adventure:
Bad Guys with Bio - tracking terrorists with biological weapons by finding bacterial fingerprints.
Bad Blood - protecting the nation's blood supply by developing means to screen the blood for deadly pathogens.
Bio on the Battlefield - building the detectors necessary to protect our troops from use of biological weapons by our adversaries.
Mad Cows and Englishmen - making sure our food supply remains safe by tracking disease in the agricultural and livestock industry, and in our food processing plants.
Bio in Buildings - Legionnaires disease, sick building syndrome, transmission of nosocomial infections in hospitals could become a thing of the past with incorporation of pathogen monitoring in normal building heating systems.
Bacteria from Outer Space - long term travel in space will require that water supplies be rigorously monitored for bacterial contamination that could be devastating for space travelers.
Seiders manages the Chemical and Biological Defense program for Pacific Northwest, and previously led a research team developing technologies for detecting and characterizing disease-causing pathogens in the environment. Prior to joining the Lab, Seiders was president and CEO of Strategic Resource Management Consulting, a company that offered support to government and private contractors on arms control and counterproliferation activities. She also was a member of the task force on Nuclear Weapons Reduction, Test Ban and Proliferation for the Gorbachev Foundation where she helped define a global security framework.
Under Seiders' leadership, technologies developed at Pacific Northwest National Lab will aid in identifying pathogens sooner and, ultimately, lead to advances in such diverse areas as food safety, counterterrorism, air and water quality, and medical health care delivery.
"Threats of disease from biological pathogens are identified most often after someone has already fallen ill," Seiders explains. "Only a few methods are available to detect disease-causing organisms before they affect people. These methods are costly and too slow for routine use to prevent disease."
Research at Pacific Northwest is directed at developing methods of detection that are not dependent on having to take a sample to a laboratory, a fundamental improvement in the ability to detect disease-causing organisms.
"This approach provides radically new opportunities to develop responses to disease threats to the public health," Seiders says.
"We're surrounded by dastardly pathogens. Fortunately, we're also surrounded by scientific superheroes dedicated to the battle to find and destroy them!" Seiders says.
