Mayo Alumni Magazine 2002 Spring - MC4409-0402 - Mayo Clinic

Invisible to the eye, anthrax grows to
visible dimension when cultured.
Tom Smith, Ph.D., is Mayo’s director
of Virology. Jim Uhl, M.Sc., is an
associate member of the Division of
Microbiology. Other clinical
microbiologists who are members of
the team include: Jon Rosenblatt, M.D.;
Mark Espy and Lynne Sloan; and
Maj. Constance Bell, Ph.D., a United
States Army officer who completed a
clinical microbiology fellowship at
Mayo Clinic in June 2001.
Maj. Bell laid the groundwork for
the anthrax test by developing reagents
for it but finalized her fellowship and
returned to active duty in the armed
forces before the development of the
test could be completed. Ironically, four
days before the terrorist attacks, she
requested additional time to complete
the paperwork on the anthrax test.
Presenting the project would be
difficult, she thought, without an
apparent, immediate need.
In a case of famous last words, Uhl
replied, “Don’t worry. There’s no
urgency on that one.”
After September 11, the team put
other projects aside and worked
around the clock to complete the test.
“We had already worked with Mayo
Medical Ventures to establish a
successful collaboration with Roche
Applied Science,” says Dr. Cockerill.
“When the first anthrax case appeared
in October, we stepped up our
collaboration to produce laboratory test
kits for the rapid anthrax test. In a
matter of days, we were able to send
the formula for the reagents to the
Roche Applied Science plant in
Penzsberg, Germany. With air travel
being limited, we were concerned
about the logistics of transporting
shipments, but we had tremendous
cooperation from the federal
government.”
To speed the preliminary
diagnosis, the test kits needed to be
available in other LightCyclerequipped
laboratories around the
country.
“Making this test available in a
very short time frame is our
contribution to the fight against
bioterrorism. The work is a direct
outcome of the excellent cooperation
between Roche Applied Science and
Mayo Clinic,” says Martin Madaus,
president and chief executive officer
of Roche Diagnostics Corporation.
“Mayo researchers have several years
of experience in developing these
types of assays. By combining our
efforts, we were able to make this test
available to qualified laboratories
only a few weeks after beginning this
initiative.”
Since Nov. 9, Roche Applied
Science made the test widely
available to public health agencies,
hospital laboratories and reference
laboratories in the United States and
other countries.
6 Mayo Alumni Spring 2002