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Indian-built anthrax detector to the rescue in US

Paritosh Parasher in Sydney

An anthrax detector made by a New Zealand-based Indian scientist is set to come to the rescue of the US, which witnessed a wave of anthrax terror last month.

Vishwa Shukla, 55, had played a principal role in the development of the machine two years ago, but his invention did not attract any attention at that time.

A spate of incidents involving the use of anthrax in the US and elsewhere following the September 11 attacks has led to a renewed interest in the machine.

The hitherto unheralded anthrax-detecting machine, called digital synthesizer and analyser, has hit the headlines in New Zealand after the Americans found it to be among the best detection devices at their disposal. It can detect biological material even if it is guarded by 2cm of metal.

The American organisers of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, early next year will depend on the machine developed by Shukla as part of its massive security operations.

The Indo-New Zealander computer scientist will lead a team of private researchers in the US to have a number of machines ready in time before the Winter Olympics in February 2002.

He will be assisted by US government researchers and the project will be executed in laboratories in the state of New Mexico.

Shukla's machine, according to New Zealand's Herald newspaper, was originally intended for use by weapons inspectors in Iraq to search for biological weapons stored by President Saddam Hussein. But the cessation of weapons inspections in that country meant it was never used.

The recent terrorism-related events in the US and elsewhere have changed the scenario completely.

The portable device developed by the senior computing lecturer at Auckland University of Technology is designed to detect and identify biological material. Using ultrasound technology, the equipment finds material like the anthrax bacterium even beyond a 2cm layer of metal. It detects the bacterium by reading its ultrasound "footprint".

Besides deep detection capability, the machine has another advantage over previous detectors -- its speed. Earlier versions of anthrax-detecting devices took up to 48 hours for rudimentary tests.

"We haven't got 48 hours, we need to know in one second, which is what this machine can do," says Shukla, who decided to live in New Zealand after making a trip.

Ironically, Shukla will not be making any commercial gains from his invention as the patent has been registered by the US company that paid for the research work.

But he is not too worried about that. "You can't fight hate with hate, you have to use your intellectual resources and that's exactly what I have done," he says.

Indo-Asian News Service

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