Recent news items report the death by suicide of an anthrax researcher, Bruce Ivins, who worked at the US Army’s Fort Detrick, a center for the study of germ warfare, and for countermeasures against it. News reports suggest that the specific strain of anthrax that caused the deaths of five individuals in 2001, who were contaminated by handling anthrax-doped mail presumably sent by a terrorist or terrorists, was able to be traced specifically to Ivins lab by its distinct genetic markers.
While Ivins was not the initial prime suspect, he had apparently become so in recent months and was under heavy-handed FBI investigation and Justice Dept. pressure, possibly precipitating his suicide.
Because Dr. Ivins was not formally indicted, with a full airing of the charges against him, and because he did not face a trial by jury at which evidence for and against his guilt could be argued, we may never know all the details, nor even if he was a villain in this story of anthrax bioterrorism.
However, it might be good for the biomedical & life sciences librarian community to know about some undeniable heroes in the overall war on anthrax.
In running a literature search on sequencing given strains of anthrax, I came across one of them. She is Theresa M. Koehler, of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, in their Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
She took her BS in Biology from Virginia Tech, and her graduate degrees in Microbiology from U.Mass., Amherst. She post-doc’d at Harvard Medical School in their program in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
She belongs to the Scientific Advisory Board for the Region VI Center of Excellence for BioDefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research. She serves on the board of directors of the ongoing International Conference on Anthrax, has organized with colleagues meetings at the famed Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, been an external reviewer for the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease, co-organized a 2005 conference on three types of bacillus, including Bacillus anthracis, and was a member in 2006-2007 of the American Society for Microbiology’s Biodefense Meeting Program Committee.
While there is no lack of papers on sequencing the DNA of anthrax, I was able to retrieve 76 in a matter of minutes, some papers seem to be the wellspring from which other anthrax DNA sequencers drew particular inspiration.
This seems particularly to be the case with Koehler’s 2002 study, “Bacillus anthracis genetics and virulence gene regulation.” It appeared in Springer’s series Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology (v.271, pp: 143-164.) This has been cited 46 times in 33 journals, most notably by the leading journal of general microbiology, the Journal of Bacteriology and the leading review journal in the field, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, and by one of its more prominent competitors, Nature Reviews Microbiology.
This would seem quite a remarkable feat save for the fact that Dr. Koehler has ten other papers with even more citations. (Indeed she has, according to Thomson-Reuters' ISI Web of Knowledge, 1,689 total citations to her work in general.) And guessing by the year from which she graduated from Virginia Tech, she is only somewhere in her forties, a remarkable record of accomplishment thus far.
Here are, if you’ll pardon the expression, are, in descending order, her greatest hits (All are coauthored with research team members, so she is not always the first author):
· Read TD et al. 2003. The genome sequence of Bacillus anthracis Ames and closely related bacteria. Nature 423 (6935): 81-86.
· Green BD et al. 1985. Demonstrations of a capsule plasmid in Bacillus anthracis. Infection and Immunity 49 (2): 291-297.
· Blaustein RO et al. 1989. Anthrax toxin channel-forming activity of protective antigen in planar phospholipid- bilayers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 86 (7): 2209-2213.
· Okinaka RT et al. 1999. Sequence and organization of pX01, the large Bacillus anthracis plasmid harboring the anthrax toxin genes. Journal of Bacteriology 181 (20): 6509-6515.
· Koehler TM et al. 1994. Regulation of the Bacillus anthracis protective antigen gene –CO2 and a trans-acting element activate transcription from one of two promoters. Journal of Bacteriology 176 (3): 586-595.
· Dixon TC et al. 2000. Early Bacillus anthracis macrophage interactions: Intracellular survival and escape. Cellular Microbiology 2 (6): 453-463.
· Dai ZH et al. 1995. The ATXA gene-product activates transcription of the anthrax toxin genes and is essential for virulence. Molecular Microbiology 16 (6): 1171-1181.
· Koehler TM et al. 1991. Anthrax toxin protective antigen, low-pH-induced hydrophobicity, and channel formation in liposomes. Molecular Microbiology 5 (6): 1501-1506.
· Koehler TM & Thorne BT. 1987. Bacillus subtilis (Natto) plasmid PLS20 mediates interspecies transfer. Journal of Bacteriology 169 (11): 5271-5278.
· Saile E & Koehler TM. 2002. Control of anthrax toxin gene expression by the transition state regulator abrB. Journal of Bacteriology 184 (2): 370-380.
Tony Stankus tstankus@uark.edu Life Sciences Librarian & Professor University of Arkansas Libraries MULN 223 E 365 North McIlroy Avenue Fayetteville AT 72701-4002 Voice: 479-409-0021 Fax: 479-575-4592
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