Yeast material used to train first responders on biothreats When there’s an accident or an emergency such as a fire in a building or a toxic spill, first responders arrive to help people at the scene. One type of emergency involves threats from biological agents such as bacterial or viral pathogens. In order to help first responders respond to these emergencies in a safe and careful manner, researchers from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a reference material based on yeast cells.
“S
an outbreak, and the use of a biothreat material
The other good thing about baker’s yeast is that
could pose a risk to the first responders involved
it provides a challenge to technologies that detect
and the surrounding community. Instead of using
genetic material similar to biothreat agents, making it a good surrogate. Da Silva explained, “Baker’s
of using NIST Reference Material (RM) 8230,
yeast has a thick wall that is hard to crack open to
occur regularly throughout the US, so first
the new surrogate material developed by NIST
extract DNA, similar to Bacillus anthracis spores
responders need routine training including
researchers. Researchers based the material on
(which cause anthrax). We needed something to
simulated biothreat scenarios,” said NIST
baker’s yeast because it is harmless and a living
researcher Sandra Da Silva. “There was a need to
biological material.
make this training accessible while also avoiding
“First responders could choose to take a biothreat
exposure to a real pathogen. With support from
agent and inactivate it, so it doesn’t grow or cause
the Department of Homeland Security, we came
disease,” said NIST researcher Nancy Lin. “But it
up with this yeast reference material to support
could still be unsettling for the public when they
local training in a safe manner.”
hear that a training exercise in their local area is using
Biothreats vary by severity and fall into one of
anthrax or smallpox, even if you try to explain that it
three categories: A, B or C. Category A includes
has been inactivated and you’re using it safely. Using
biological agents that could pose a national
a non-harmful material such as baker’s yeast, which
security risk or deliberately be released to harm
is used to make bread, can avoid this situation.”
people, animals, plants or other living organisms;
In addition, the use of actual biothreat agents
anthrax is one example of this. Categories B and
during training has the potential to leave residual
C include biological threats that are of less severity
material on equipment, which can then cause a
but still harmful.
false positive in a real response situation. If some
For all these biological agents, it can be a challenge to prepare in advance and train for
yeast cells do remain, they will not trigger a positive response in the biothreat detection assay.
Image: N Lin/NIST.
the actual pathogen, responders have the option
uspicious powder incidents
Jeremy Clancy, Battalion Chief of the Howard County Department of Fire Rescue Services, sampled the yeast material in a powdered form using the existing field protocols.
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