Science Inventory

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Following an accidental or intentional outdoor release of an environmentally persistent biological agent, such as Bacillus anthracis (Ba), a sampling campaign involving the collection of bulk vegetation matrices (grass, ground litter, and leaves) to determine the scope of contami...

Sample processing is a serious bottleneck in rapid and timely analysis of a large number of samples resulting in the delayed decision-making during a response to a wide-area bioterrorism incident. Sponge-Stick is the most commonly used and most preferred surface sampling tool by ...

Sample processing is still a serious bottleneck in rapid and timely analysis of a large number of samples resulting in the delayed decision-making during a response to a wide-area biothreat incident. Sponge-Stick is the most commonly used and most preferred surface sampling tool ...

When an environmental catastrophe resulting in contamination occurs, whether from intentional incident such as a terrorist attack or an unintentional incident such as an industrial spill, emergency responders and decision-makers need timely and accurate data. This need for data c...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Selected Analytical Methods for Environmental Remediation and Recovery (SAM) represents the latest step in an ongoing effort of EPA’s Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP) to provide selected analytical methods to laboratorie...

This presentation, "Biothreat Agent Detection: Advances in Rapid Viability Analytical Methods," focuses on the EPA-ORD’s development of rapid viability testing methods to detect some of the most dangerous biological threat agents such as the bacteria that cause an...

This is a presentation on the Rapid Viability PCR Methods for Detection of Yersinia pestis and Francisella tularensis in Water to be delivered at the EPA Office of Water 2021 WLA Summit. During a bioterrorism incident or a natural outbreak, the water system can be contaminated wi...

Analytical methods exist to detect biothreat agents in environmental samples during a response to biological contamination incidents. However, the coastal zone facilities and assets of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), including response boats in diverse geographical areas an...

This document provides step-by-step instructions for the use of swabs, wipes, and sponge-sticks to collect samples from surfaces potentially contaminated with microbiological agents. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the analytical methods listed in U.S. Environmental...

Sub-product reports the evaluation and development of sampling extraction and processing procedures for difficult matrices samples. Such samples may contain high organic and environmental material, which will be challenging to process and analyze using the existing bio agent samp...

The management of response and recovery operations from a biological contamination incident is complicated by the fact that contamination may spread following the incident and subsequent initial extent-of-contamination characterization efforts due to impacts of wind, precipitatio...

The SCID is a companion document to the SAM document and will need to be updated to match the SAM 2022 document. Revisions continue from STRAP3. Supports ESAM.

This is a draft manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal paper publication.  It includes a part of the research work performed in the project, “Development of Rapid Viability-Reverse Transcriptase PCR (RV-RT-PCR) Method for Detection of Infectious SARS-CoV-2 from Environmental Samp...

This presentation provides an overview of the Analysis for Coastal Operational Resiliency (AnCOR) program, an interagency effort to assess and improve capabilities and strategic guidelines to prepare the U.S. for a wide-area release of a biological agent, including mitigating imp...

Presentation and sampling procedure handouts to be used during sampler virtual training for AnCOR WAD demonstration. As part of the AnCOR project, a wide area demonstration (WAD) of decontamination of USCG assets in an urban area with a Bacillus anthracis surrogate will take plac...

This document describes procedures for collecting and concentrating water samples in a field setting for waterborne pathogen and biothreat agent detection. The methods describe water sampling by concentrating large volumes of water in the field via dead-end ultrafiltration (DEUF)...

This is a protocol for detection of ricin biotoxin in environmental samples. It includes two sensitive and specific analytical methods including the ElectroChemiLuminescence-Based Immunoassay (ECL-IA) and the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), also known as the Hand-Held ...

This product is a final report on the project on “Evaluation of Analytical Methods for Detection of Bacillus anthracis Surrogate Spores: Compatibility with Real-World Maritime Environmental Samples Collected from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Assets and Facilities.” In this effort,...

A large-scale release of a chemical, radiochemical, or biological (CBR) agent can result in wide-area contamination and would require significant time and resources for recovery. Several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP) decision supp...

Evaluation of surface sampling methods for USCG assets, following a biological contamination incident. 

A rapid analytical method for detection of infectious (live) SARS-CoV-2 in environmental surface samples (e.g., swabs) was needed to better understand the surface transmission of this virus and to support environmental epidemiological investigations. To address this need, a proof...

This report describes the development of a Rapid Viability-Reverse Transcriptase PCR (RV-RTPCR) method for detection of infectious (live) virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19. The EPA-ORD’s Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP), in collaboration with the Department of Ener...

This is a final report for the project on Optimization of a Rapid Viability (RV) PCR Protocol for Detection of Francisella tularensis in water. During a tularemia bioterrorism incident or a natural outbreak, the water system can be contaminated. This pathogen survives for many da...

Following a biological contamination incident, the spatial extent of the contamination should be determined using established sampling and analytical methods such as culture or RV-PCR. A previous study demonstrated that a sampling strategy involving native air samplers could be i...

Francisella tularensis, the bacterium that causes Tularemia infection, is a high-priority bioterrorism agent. There is no step‐by‐step analytical protocol for detection of Francisella tularensis in environmental samples that can be used by the EPA’s Environmental Response Laborat...