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The recent indictment of dirty bomb suspect José Padilla has focused the world's attention once again on the idea that an explosive device packed with radioactive material could be detonated in a major city by a determined terrorist, with only basic knowledge of radioactive isotopes and metallurgy.
Depending on the strength of the blast and the potency of the radioactive material, contamination could occur in an area the size of a subway station, several city blocks, or many square miles. The damage would be less devastating than that wrought by a nuclear device, but dirty bombs are much easier to create. Sources for weaker radioactive materials include low-level waste from medical or research labs, welding shops and construction sites. Also, of the tens of thousands of sources of industrial radiation in this country, very few are guarded.
To prepare for the aftermath of such a catastrophe, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are encouraging radiation researchers to work on developing a device that can quickly detect and measure radiation exposure. Such a device would enable people who have been exposed to harmful levels of radiation to be treated quickly, and would keep others from panicking unnecessarily. Current technology can assess only a few hundred individuals per day.
A case in point is the $25 million NIH grant recently awarded to Columbia for designing new technologies for rapid radiation screening in densely populated areas.
Columbia is the lead institution in carrying out the five-year project, which also involves Harvard's School of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute and New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Columbia is an obvious choice for such a study because of its extensive work in disaster relief, its location in a major city and its ability to assemble an interdisciplinary team of radiological researchers and mechanical engineers. Both medical and engineering skill sets will be needed for developing this new technology, and Columbia can call on its highly skilled faculty in both the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and the Medical Center to support the five-year project.
"With our multidisciplinary mix of biologists, physicists, chemists, mechanical engineers, software engineers, commercial companies and end users, we will approach this challenge from many unique angles," says Sally A. Amundson, associate professor of radiation oncology and the study's co-principal investigator.
The rapid screening device the Columbia researchers have in mind involves using advanced automated image analysis and robotics to quickly examine tissue samples (i.e., a fingerstick of blood) for quantitative indicators of radiation exposure (e.g., fragments of DNA or DNA repair complexes).
The mechanical engineering professors for their part will need to study basic biology -- how cells divide and change when exposed to radiation -- so that they can share a common language with the doctors and scientists involved in the project.
"Our engineers need to have a working knowledge of basic biology in order to design these devices," says Lawrence Yao, chair of mechanical engineering at SEAS. "I am encouraging them to get out of their comfort zone," he adds.
Yao and Nabil Simaan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and an expert in medical robotics, will lead the engineering team involved in the project.
Already, conceptual designs with significant innovation are underway, and plans have been created for purpose-built robotic devices to integrate the numerous steps required to meet the goal of high-throughput, minimally invasive mass screening. | 
