Microbial Forensics: Building a National Capacity to Investigate Bioterrorism

AS EARLY AS 1995, I had suggested that the investigation and solution of bioterrorism events would rely heavily on forensic science. I predicted this because of the view that such events could be readily perpetrated without the availability of eyewitnesses, concerned citizen reporting, records available for review and analysis, or serendipitous or purposeful intelligence or evidence. It is from these sources of information that law enforcement usually conducts investigations, makes arrests, and disrupts, prevents, or deters crime. The prediction was also based on the expectation that someday one or a small number of skilled individuals would succeed in such an operation, by possessing knowledge and materials, employing tight operational security, and using subtle means during the preparation and dissemination of a biological agent. This appears to have become reality during the anthrax attacks of 2001 against a media outlet in Florida, NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw in New York City, and U.S. Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in Washington, DC, using the U.S. postal system as the delivery vehicle.1,2 More than a year later, the nation and the world await the resolution of this event, as well as the identification and prosecution of the culpable person or persons. To the public, it seems that there has been little activity on this case over the past several months. One wonders if this investigation is at a standstill, as happened in the UNABOM investigation, in which Theodore Kaczynski was arrested 17 years after his first mail bombing.3 It is hoped that new investigative leads or evidence will soon be developed to speed the solution of the anthrax attacks. But readers with law enforcement experience will realize that “hot pursuit” from this point will likely not occur until the perpetrator makes a mistake, a friend or relative reports probative (relevant) information to authorities, or additional forensic evidence or investigative information is developed. The prosecution of the anthrax attack cases, when it finally does occur, will probably rely heavily on forensic evidence that has been collected, analyzed, and interpreted. I predicted this condition in 1996 and used it as a basis for the creation of the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit and many associated relationships with other agencies and organizations that bring capability to this table. This entity has been a catalyst in recent times for focusing attention on the pivotal role of forensics and on integrating forensics in the investigation of terrorism events involving the use of weapons of mass destruction, disruption, or effect. If we were to imagine how a future anthrax attack investigation might unfold, we might project what the nation’s response might be to a bioterrorism event, but this time we would imagine a more comprehensive, integrated, and exploitative forensic capability at our disposal. In the incidents of 2001, U.S. investigators may well have made the best of what was then available. But with the present and future threat of biological weapons and the “bad actors” that possess and could use them, an aggressive new leap in capability is warranted, similar to what was argued for and subsequently established in forensic DNA analysis beginning in the mid-1980s. The time has now come to define and fully establish a new scientific discipline of microbial forensics, which develops the science base and a forward-leaning, integrated, national biological weapons (BW) forensic capability that coordinates research and development and applies validated science and technology against national requirements. The two are separate but related enterprises, but they must be closely coupled and evolve by leveraging each other for best outcomes.