The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is an academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

 

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Research Grants 1984-1985

Development of Monospeicfic Enzyme Immunoassay for Botulinum Toxins Using Affinity Chromatography and Hybridoma Technology

Manoucherhe Dezfulian, PhD
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Manouchehr Dezfulian, PhD, of the Hopkins School of Medicine, received a new grant to develop an in vitro test for botulism contamination.

Caused by bacteria that infest improperly canned or preserved foods, botulism poisoning causes respiratory failure and muscle weakness and often is fatal. Different strains of bacteria produce different kinds of poison. Before a physician can administer an antidote, he or she must determine which kind of poison is the culprit.

Dr. Dezfulian hopes to employ specific antitoxins, chemical compounds that "cling" to toxins, to identify the different poisons overnight in patients and prepared foods. Current tests for botulism use live mice and take four days to complete.