Interview - Dr. Chakkumkal Anish
Posted by kikic on Tuesday, 20 August 2013 Dr. Chakkumkal Anish´s recent publication in Angewandte Chemie (Applied Chemistry) on synthesizing an artificial plague antigen and proving the possibility of plague detection through its use in large scale screenings and eventually point-of-care devices, caused a reverberation in the scientific community. Plague in the 21st century? You must be kidding! Unfortunately, no. Cases are reported each year, from New Mexico to China (see our press release), and plague is officially classified as Class A bioterrorism agent. Dr. Anish describes the rationale and the applications of his discovery.
Why plague?
Plague was selected for two reasons: first, its historical importance. There is no other disease that devastated humanity like this. Black death still gives us chills. It killed more then 200 million people through its several epidemics. It devastated the world population through ages. Thus, it was a perfect model to demonstrate our concept of using synthetic glycan antibodies for pathogen detection. Second, plague is classified as Class A highly lethal bio-weapon that may cause extreme social panic and chaos. Reliable tests for this bacteria are very important for early detection. If undetected, plague is lethal within a week of its onset. ...