◆ SpookStack

(Wy e ser «| «(@ To: Washington Field From: New Orleans Re: (U) 279A-WF-222936, 03/04/2002 people have access to the B. anthracis. [__Jalso has the vaccine strain of B. anthracis and an avirulent In order to import or transfer samples Bruce Ivins was the point tact at USAMRIID for the eleven strains obtained in P9908 Lo | raceived one shipment from USAMRIID, and that was the first time[_Jobtained the Ames strain. (U) During an interview of [on February 20, 2002 the following information was provided: primers which are specific to the has a huge archive, but has developing the anthrax assay and designed the primers against the two virulence plasmids and a chromosomal gene target of anthrax. [_] patented the targe i ot of different B. anthracis strains were sent from and have been sequenced. es ~ gsxL__Isaia the most virulent strains of B. anthracis ave both plasmids. does not know how successful it would be to try to transfer thé plasmids into a non-pathogenic Bacillus sp. in order to make it produce the anthrax toxins. The plasmid which produces the toxin has to be present for it to be virulent. They can reduce virulence by removing the capsule plasmid because the capsule protects the organism from the host it infects. if the chromosomal gene target does not show up, the organism 1s either a manipulated strain of Bacillus, SE T 12 b6 bic b7D