its all about microbial forensics

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By,
Gopika Babu
1st
Year MSc. Forensic
science Lovely
Professional University

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Microbial Forensics means a scientific discipline
dedicated to analyze evidence from a bioterrorism act, bio crime, or
intentional microorganism/toxin release for attribution purposes. The
unlawful use of biological agents causes dangers to individuals, public
health, the environment, the economies of nations, and global peace is
also increasing with the emerging technology.
So, building awareness and capacity in microbial
forensics will help in understanding what may have occurred during
biological attack and how it can be prevented.

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Bioterrorism is the one of the types of terrorism which
uses the virus, bacteria or germs to harm the people. It a rare type, it is
used to cause fear and harm to people, government and countries. A
Bioterrorist intentionally releases harmful biological agents to threaten
the people or environment. According to Seth Carus (bioterrorism expert
who testified before U.S congress) in 2001, he clearly said that “most
individuals and groups who have used biological agents had traditional
criminal motives.”
According to the research great scientists all over the world, in
future war between the countries will not be with weapons or missiles, it
will be with biological weapons. So, for the protection of public health it
is essential to identify microorganism first and then locate its spot and
prevent it from further exposure in all type of bioterrorism cases.
Here comes the role of Microbial Forensics, it helps to identify
organisms, require standardization and validation, and must meet legal
standards for evidence.
Some of the types of bioterrorism are:
 Anthrax (Bacillus anthracis)
 Botulism (Clostridium botulinum toxin)
 Plague (Yersinia pestis)
 Smallpox (variola major)
 Tularemia (Francisella tularensis)
 Viral hemorrhagic fevers
Bioterrorism

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As we all know Microbial forensics is “a scientific
discipline used to analyze evidence from a bioterrorism act, bio crime, or
intentional microorganism/toxin release for unlawful purposes.” In
microbial forensics law enforcement and scientists from various
departments like microbiology, genetics, public health, agriculture work
together to identify and prevent intentional release of biological agents.
Dr. Randall Murch is one of the main scientists who work behind the
microbial forensics to make it better.
Some of the important roles of the microbial forensics are:
 To identify the biological threat.
 To find the population which is the victim of these threat
 Create certain database for the identification process
 Develop different protocols for this process
 Develop certain programs to ensure the validity of the results.
This is what microbial forensics do in bioterrorism.

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 Recover Evidence
In this first step, evidence is recovered. There are so many
protocols are there to collect evidence. It should be followed.
 Issues
Under issues comes certain things like to control material,
environment and maximize recovery. For these different things have to
do, includes,
 Particle sizing is used to analyze the size of particle used as
biological agent.
 Analytical chemistry includes use of different methods and
instruments to identify and quantify the substance used as
biological threats.
 Electron microscope is the instrumental analysis included in it. It
includes both it’s type SEM and TEM.
 Spore density means the resistance adapted by the biological
agents in adverse condition. It is essential to measure its
resistance to prevent it from further destruction.
 Percentage viability is used to know how much living cells are
there in that threatening agent and how much is died.
 Microbial identification
It is next step to classify it according to virology, bacteriology etc.
 Strain identification
It can be done using genetic engineering. Using genetic engineering
it is able to identify its characteristics and structure by analyzing the
genetic material.

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Microbial forensics mainly deals with microorganisms,
virus, parasites and even toxins released by some organisms. Biological
agents which does not limit in the list prepared by various countries and
as well as human will be not only the target, even agriculture plants and
animals can also be targeted. Work of microbial forensics is based on the
biodiversity, phylogeography, genomics.
As we know the technology is expanding, now microbial forensics
uses bioinformatics. According to Dr. Dana Perkins microbial forensics is
like nuclear forensics, use to detect and prevent illegal trafficking or use
of biological materials.
 As we all know microbial forensics has specific role in preventing bio
crime or bioterrorism. Not only this, microbial forensic has specific
role in human identity testing.
Mostly humans are born with 20,000 genes and die with
more than 10 lakh genes. This is due to human microbiome attached to
human body. They can self-replicate, transferrable from human to
human. They have similar DNA to human DNA. Its causes confusions
while testing DNA’s found in murder, rape cases. So, here comes the
role of microbial forensics, it helps in microbiome profiling which is
an important tool in forensic human identity testing.
Microbial forensics is also used to determine,
 Cause of Death (here includes the cases like drowning, SDIs etc.)
 Time of Death (post mortem interval)
 Place of Death (soil)
 Suspect (skin, hair, age etc.)

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1. Bruce Budowle
Bruce Budowle is head of group
of scientists who developed new
discipline in microbial forensics
to strengthen the law enforcement
in bioterrorism act. He testified in
around 250 cases. He is still working
on the emerging infectious diseases.
2. Sarah E. Schmedes
Sarah E. Schmedes is scholar
of molecular and medical
genetics. She is researching on
the metagenomics, microbial
forensics and diseases.
Great Scientists involved in development
of Microbial Forensics

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 So, from all these we can conclude that emerging of the technologies
will improve the development of microbial forensics in a better way.
In future the war between the countries will be with biological
weapons this year 2020 is showing an example for the that. Microbial
forensics will give a great contribution to prevent COVID-19.
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234883/
 https://www.intechopen.com/books/forensic-medicine-from-old-
problems-to-new-challenges/forensic-microbiology
 https://jcm.asm.org/content/jcm/54/8/1964.full.pdf
Bibliography

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