Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD — United States military forces train to fight and win in any field. Since water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, warfighters face many threats in this environment. With this thought in mind, scientists at the US Army Combat Capability Development Command’s Chemical Biology Center (DEVCOM CBC) are researching methods of protecting soldiers by detecting waterborne biological threats.
Among these biological threats are the toxins produced by microalgae.

According to DEVCOM CBC biologist Alena Calm, large swathes of coastlines, lakes and ponds around the world are closed to commercial and recreational activities each year due to dangerous levels of toxins resulting from natural microalgal blooms. “Our soldiers are deployed in about 150 countries around the world, and many of those areas will experience harmful algal blooms,” Calm said. “We need to know the potential toxins in any given area, how to detect them, and how to protect our soldiers from potential exposure.”

Calm pointed out that fighters don’t have to come in contact with water to be exposed to waterborne toxins. For example, a harmful microalgal bloom (often referred to as a red tide) occurs nearly every summer along Florida’s Gulf Coast. The toxins created by this microalgae aerosolize and can cause symptoms ranging from itchy eyes, rashes, and minor breathing problems to severe breathing difficulties for people with pre-existing respiratory problems. “Depending on the concentration of organisms and atmospheric conditions, these toxins can pose a threat to combatants deployed in coastal areas or aboard watercraft,” Calm said.

The first step in building a capacity to detect, identify and protect against these toxins is to create a repository of the microalgae that produce them. Once the microalgae repository is in place, he will be able to provide microalgae samples to researchers at the Center and other Department of Defense laboratories. A team of Center researchers began the planning process for the project, including lab design and extensive research, in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After several months of collaborating remotely, the team reunited on-site at CBC’s lab space in July 2020.

Today, with funding from the Executive Office of the Joint Program for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense, Calm is working with Dr. CJ Howard and Dr. Natalie Robinett in the Center’s BioTechnology branch to grow cultures of unknown microalgae at from samples taken from different fresh waters. seaweed blooms in the American West and Southwest. These algae are identified by their DNA to determine which ones could produce harmful toxins. Cultures of each identified algae are added to the repository so that they can then be grown and provided in support of future research on waterborne biological threats.

As the program progresses, additional samples from freshwater and marine sources around the world will be collected and identified to build a repository that represents the global environment in which soldiers could be deployed.

“Once we have a working repository of stains, we will make them available to other service labs so that they can work to protect the warfighter in the field from the threat of environmental exposure to home toxins. water,” Calm said.

The DEVCOM CBC team is currently laying the groundwork for an aquaculture capability that will eventually allow researchers to provide warfighters with tools to anticipate and detect the presence of waterborne toxins and protect themselves during missions in such environments.

Microalgae require special growth conditions because they are photosynthetic and grow very slowly. “It was a bit of an adjustment in terms of managing the schedule for the project,” Calm explained. “While I could do an entire experiment in a single day with E. coli bacteria, that same experiment could take three weeks with microalgae.”

Studying a class of biological threats as diverse as toxic microalgae requires a wide range of aquaculture techniques that the Centre’s biologists are still learning, but building the repository will pave the way for a useful set capabilities that will help researchers better understand these existing and emerging biological threats. threats, Calm said. “CBC labs have already been integral to fielding detection kits for soldiers, and I have seen these detection kits expanded to include a panel of waterborne toxins.”

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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) leads the discovery, development, and delivery of technological capabilities that enable soldiers to win our nation’s wars and return home safely. security. DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of US Army Futures Command. The DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center is the Army’s primary research and development center for chemical and biological defense technology, engineering, and field operations. The DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center is headquartered in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.