Over on the Cepheid cartridge teardown post someone left an interesting comment about regarding Cepheids biothreat project (Anthrax testing) with the USPS.
Very interesting. Any idea about the sensitivity of Cepheid's Anthrax test? Is it sensitive enough for practical purposes? If spores are enclosed in an envelope, how likley is it that a few spores leaking out will be captured and detected above noise? Sounds a bit dicey to me..
I find it unlikely that it would be able to detect spores even somewhat well enclosed, but I assume there should be some literature on this.
I think the purpose of the system was more likely to protect postal workers in the case of an attack directed against postal workers or accidental breakage/leakage of anthrax on route.
Even so… it’s unclear to me how practical the system is. They say no false positives though!
Very interesting. Any idea about the sensitivity of Cepheid's Anthrax test? Is it sensitive enough for practical purposes? If spores are enclosed in an envelope, how likley is it that a few spores leaking out will be captured and detected above noise? Sounds a bit dicey to me..
I find it unlikely that it would be able to detect spores even somewhat well enclosed, but I assume there should be some literature on this.
I think the purpose of the system was more likely to protect postal workers in the case of an attack directed against postal workers or accidental breakage/leakage of anthrax on route.
Even so… it’s unclear to me how practical the system is. They say no false positives though!