Cases of anthrax and anthrax exposure have been cropping up in alarming numbers since the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the US Pentagon.

Companies like Cepheid and GeneSoft in California's technology centers are rushing to fill orders for sophisticated detection devices and counter-bioterrorism techniques that can fight anthrax and other predatory diseases.

Cepheid, formed in 1996, has received some 15 million dollars from the US Defense Department to perfect its portable DNA detection device, which can confirm the presence of microbes in a matter of hours, instead of days.

GeneSoft is one of many biotechnology firms trying to perfect chemicals that can bind with the DNA of marauding bacteria, preventing its from replicating.

"The bioterrorism war will be fought on a technological front," said Cepheid founder and CEO Tom Gutshall.

Cepheid's device, which is currently being deployed by both US and local law enforcement officials, was born out of miniaturization technology first perfected at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which conducts research on nuclear weapons.

The Cepheid machine takes suspected anthrax spores and "cracks" them open with an ultrasonic pulse. The DNA strands inside are melted and cooled to make them reproduce in enough numbers to set off detection equipment calibrated to find anthrax DNA.

"We initially thought our machines would be used for such things as food preparation and other such applications," said Gutshall. "But its now a frontline defense for bioterrorism."

Gutshall said the number of machines now being deployed for anthrax detection is a government secret.

"The campaign against bioterrorism will create a boon for smaller companies that don't have a lot of cash, but who have some really neat stuff that's been sitting on their shelves," said Brent Erickson, a spokesman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a biotech trade group based in Washington.

Erickson said those companies specializing in vaccines are getting the immediate attention. For example, Needham, Massachusetts-based Avant has been asked by the US military to apply its work on oral vaccines for traveler's diarrhea to the rapid immunization of large populations against bioterrorism infections like anthrax.

Other companies are stepping up work on anthrax-fighting enzymes that can be sprayed over large areas, and "monoclonal" vaccines that will immunize someone immediately against a killer germ.

"There was a lot of exciting stuff sitting around that's going to get dusted off and put to use," said BIO's Erickson.

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