Phil,
I wondered about this story as well. First off, if it is true it
is pretty damned scary. I cannot imagine intentionally making avian flu
virus *more* capable of infecting human cells without a very good
reason. I also find it very scary that it was being done outside of a
Class 4 lab (CDC, Fort Detreich (sic)). The risk/ consequences are
unimaginable. Hubris is a dangerous thing.
The other thing that bothered me was the description of the
accident. Before medical school I worked in a Biochemistry Lab at MUSC
doing bacterial gene mapping using phage viruses. The centrifuges we
used came in two varieties: the cheap ones (mere $1000's) and the
Ultra-centrifuges (mere $1000's for the rotor alone). The cheap ones, if
unbalanced, would dance around and make a lot of noise, but did not
generate enough G's (few 100's) to break the tubes or caps. The
ultra-centrifuges were a different beast. They had dedicated tubes and
were designed to be idiot proof. Nothing but the correct tube would fit.
All spun loads had to be balanced to within a few micrograms. The rotor
spun in a chamber that is evacuated to a small fraction of 1 Torr to
prevent the tubes from burning by air friction, and the G forces they
generated were unimaginable (100,000 was not unusual). There was no room
for error so the machines are designed to auto-shut-off if it was the
least out of balance.
Now that was a lot of years ago; so there may be other types of
machines out there that perform differently. I would like this story
more widely reported which I suppose is the whole point.
Charlie
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Philippe Le Zuikomane
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 6:52 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot
Yep - still trying to get a couple friends with biology/medical degrees
to look at the report(s) he got... The good news is that once that stuff
is investigated, we most likely will have a pretty safe lab run by some
very paranoid people. It's really a wake-up call, though, about those
who are busy mucking with viruses all over the world, hoping for fame
and fortune. If I understand correctly, the accident seems to have
resulted from two nearly identical centrifuges having their incompatible
parts mixed up - and no proper protocol for dealing with a mishap. -
Phil
On 15:23, ScottGee1 wrote:
>Yikes!
>
>ScottGee1
==
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|