A technology originally intended to screen for cancer proteins may eventually be used to search for biological weapons of mass destruction.

Researchers at Iowa State and a Hawaii-based company have been working for almost a year on a project with a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. Iowa State’s share of the grant is $200,000.

“We were working on a detection scheme with proteins for cancer markers until we thought about using this to search for weapons of mass destruction,” said Robert Lipert, associate scientist at Iowa State’s Microanalytical Instrumentation Center.

ISU researchers were introduced with Hawaii-based Concurrent Analytical Inc., a manufacturer of the equipment used in the Raman scattering process, which can be used to detect weapons of mass destruction like anthrax spores or the bubonic plague.

“We’ve been doing research on this Raman spectroscopy for a while, and Concurrent Analytical makes the portable instrument,” said Marc Porter, professor of chemistry.

The platform used by the researchers uses a bench top laser to scan the surface of a material and detects the energy required to cause vibrations in different molecules. The phenomenon can be applied to search gases, liquids or solids, according to Encarta Encyclopedia.

To increase lab safety, the research team is not experimenting with any actual weapons of mass destruction, but uses bacteria and spores that act like biological weapons.

“It’s done mostly in a standard chemistry laboratory,” Porter said. “It’s not hazardous or anything.”

He said the research team has faced some challenges during the past year, but credited the five ISU graduate students working on the project.

“We have a surface that has an antibody on it that will bind to the target, but the challenge is to get things in solution to the surface,” Porter said. “The graduate students are really the ones that make it work.”

In addition to using the Raman scattering method for detecting cancerous proteins and biological weapons, Concurrent Analytical is also seeking companies in the biomedical field with potential applications. Porter said the team would also be investigating Raman scattering’s potential to test for animal pathogens with Ames’ National Animal Disease Lab, 1800 Dayton Ave.

The technology must be tested thoroughly before it becomes practically applied. The eventual product of the collaboration will be a unit that is portable and deployable in the field to test for biological weapons of mass destruction.

Christian Schoen, founder, president and CEO of Concurrent Analytical Inc., could not be reached for comment.