UGA researchers discover cell-wall carbohydrate that is crucial to anthrax...( enormous. There are more than 100 known...)

Effective vaccines and antibiotics against anthrax do exist. Indeed, the federal government began Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion initiative, even before the last anthrax letter was delivered in 2001. Still, a New York Times story on September 18 reported that despite a $900 million "push to add a new anthrax vaccine to the stockpile," there have been setbacks. The Times reported that "only a small fraction of the anticipated remedies are available."

As a first step in understanding the structure and function of cell wall carbohydrates, the research team examined four Bacillus anthracis strains Ames, Pasteur, Sterne and UT60 and compared them to two related strains of Bacillus cereus, a soil-dwelling bacterium that causes food-borne illnesses. Cultures of these strains and the initial cell wall preparations were prepared by CDC researchers in their biosafety labs.

One important discovery in the just-reported research is that the newly discovered carbohydrate in the cell wall of B. anthracis is "species specific"; that is, of the strains tested, it was only found in the anthrax bacterium. This is one of several necessary conditions for a molecule that may be used to prepare rapid diagnostic tests for anthrax.