McMaster Univ. researcher Alison Devault examines an intestinal specimen from a patient who died from cholera during an 1849 outbreak of the disease in Philadelphia. Researchers from McMaster Univ., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and two other institutions used LLNL's microbial detection array to identify two previously verified bacterial human pathogens. Image: McMaster Univ.Scientists who study past pandemics, such as the 14th-century Black Death that devastated much of Europe, might soon be turning to an innovative biological detection technology for some extra help.


Researchers at McMaster Univ., led by Hendrik Poinar, an assoc. prof. of evolutionary genetics, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) tested the application of a novel microarray, the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA), to identify human bacterial pathogens from archaeological remains. The team tested two samples that had been previously verified as containing pathogens through another technology.


The other sample tested with the LLMDA indicated the presence of Yersinia pestis (or plague) in a medieval tooth from 1348 from the East Smithfield burial ground in London. An estimated 30 to 50% of the European population succumbed to plague from 1347 to 1351.



Poinar, who is an expert on ancient DNA, agreed.







Developed in early 2008, the LLMDA permits the detection of any virus or bacteria that has been sequenced and included among the instrument's 135,000 probes—on a one-inch wide, three-inch long glass slide—within 24 hrs. The LLMDA version run for the cholera and Y. pestis tests could detect about 1,850 viruses and about 1,400 bacteria.






Genomic sequencing is the process of determining the precise order of the four different DNA bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine—within a cell of anything from bacteria to plants to animals.

Two other institutions participated in the research—the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (Mutter Museum) and the Univ. of South Carolina.


Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory