Battelle vice president: Better detection key to combating Ebola, other viruses
October 30, 2014 9:00 AMBy Daniel Daw
Matthew Shaw
Mathew Shaw, the vice president and general manager ofBattelle‘s CBRNE Defense division, addressed a global conference on the future of biological threat detection on Wednesday.
Homeland security and defense experts heard Shaw speak at the seventh annual CBRNE Convergence conference in Long Island.
Shaw said the Ebola outbreak and cases of Enterovirus D-68 show the need for better detection.
“You hear a lot of concern over viruses becoming ‘aerosolized’ because inhalation is the easiest way for an infection to spread,” Shaw said. “That’s why it’s critical to be able to recognize the presence of an infectious bioaerosol as quickly as possible, preferably before people start getting sick. Early detection and rapid medical diagnosis are our best lines of defense.”
Since 1990, Battelle has aided the U.S. Department of Defense in developing countermeasures to viruses and other microbes that have become able to be spread in the air. It also helped the U.S. Army develop technology for its mobile “lab-on-a-truck.”
