A changing world: New approaches for the development of detection methods for safety and security-relevant bacterial pathogens

Abstract

The effects of global warming, geopolitical tensions, radicalisation and demographic change are leading to an increasing challenge in different areas, affecting the stability of our community in many ways. This also includes the threat posed to our society by pathogenic microorganisms. In addition to the diverse scenarios based on the natural spread of new pathogens as well as their resistance to antibiotics, the threat posed by the deliberate release of harmful microorganisms is also becoming increasingly relevant. The first year of the corona pandemic has shown how vulnerable modern communities are and what kind of impact new pathogens can have on critical infrastructures. The raised awareness of this impact also leads to an increase in the risk of a terrorist attack involving biological agents or at least in the use of suspicious substances to spread fear. Both, for safety-related scenarios (e.g. the occurrence of a new pathogen due to global warming) and for security-relevant scenarios (e.g. suspicious powder in an envelope), the rapid and reliable detection and identification of microorganisms is therefore a top priority for civil protection. Depending on pathogen or the scenario at hand, the detection methods currently in use are often inadequate, as they either take too long, are too unspecific or prone to failure, or their level of automation is low and therefore presents a potential risk to the user. To avoid existing bottlenecks in the detection of various microorganisms in different scenarios, the Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructures at the German Aerospace Center is working with partners to identify new and improved approaches. These include, for example, the rapid detection of bacterial endospores in suspicious samples (indication of the presence of pathogens of the genera Bacillus or Clostridium) as well as the aptamer-based detection of waterborne pathogenic bacteria by binding specific surface proteins.