[Clips] New Screening Tech Misses Nothing

[R.A. Hettinga]

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 Wired News

 Wired News New Screening Tech Misses Nothing
 By Abby Christopher?

 Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69137,00.html

 02:00 AM Oct. 11, 2005 PT

 Bad news for terrorists and drug traffickers: The hunt for narcotics,
 explosives and biohazards is about to get faster and easier thanks to new
 research from Purdue University.

 A new testing method can, for the first time, speedily check objects and
 people for traces of chemical compounds. The detection technology known as
 mass spectrometry is already in use by forensic scientists.

 "Mass spectrometry is one of the most sensitive methods for finding drugs,
 chemicals, pollutants and disease, but the problem is that you have to
 extract a sample and treat that sample before you can analyze it," said
 Evan Williams, a chemistry professor at UC Berkeley.


 That process can take anywhere from two to 15 minutes for each sample.
 Multiply that by the number of people in line at airport security at JFK
 the day before Thanksgiving, and you've got a logistical nightmare on your
 hands.

 The research from Purdue, led by analytical chemistry professor Graham
 Cooks, developed a technique called desorption electrospray ionization, or
 DESI, that eliminates a part of the mass spectrometry process, and thus
 speeds up the detection of substances to less than 10 seconds, said
 Williams.

 To use it, law enforcement officials and security screeners will spray
 methanol or a water and salt mixture on the surface of an object, or a
 person's clothing or skin, and test immediately for microscopic traces of
 chemical compounds.

 In the lab, DESI has tested for chemicals at the picogram level -- or
 trillionths of a gram. This is about 1,000 times less than the minimum
 amount of material previously required for detection.

 Cooks also hopes to commercialize a rugged DESI sensor that would weigh as
 little as 25 pounds and fit into a knapsack.

 "We have tested it for a wide variety of explosives and the experiments
 represent several practical conditions such as using mixtures using
 different surfaces (skin, paper, luggage)," says Nari Talaty, a graduate
 student on Cooks' team at Purdue.

 The new technique is "extremely promising for the detection of illicit
 substances on surfaces," said Herbert Hill Jr., a chemistry professor at
 Washington State University who is researching ion mobility spectrometry.


 "With DESI it appears possible to bring the instrument to the sampling
 site, reducing sampling time and complexity," said Hill.

 Scientific instrument maker Jeol USA, Oakridge Labs and other academic
 researchers have also developed their own surface testing techniques using
 mass spectrometry.


 Jeol's patented technique uses helium or nitrogen gas to extract and ionize
 chemicals, and is already being used by the U.S. Army's Chemical and Bio
 Labs, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. However, it cannot
 currently detect biomolecules and proteins for biohazards -- an appealing
 feature of Purdue's system.


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 R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
 The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
 [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
 experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'