With the anniversary of Sept 11 in the rear-view mirror, it is hard not to remember the events that came after that disastrous day. One of which was the anthrax scare.

Anthrax develops from the bacteria Bacillus anthracis , according to professor John Cavanagh from the department of molecular and structural biochemistry.

“If you upset it [Bacillus anthracis ], it develops spores, which are like protective shells to the bacteria,” Cavanaugh said.

These spores are incredibly strong. According to Benjamin Bobay , senior research in biochemistry, “you could throw a nuclear warhead at a spore and nothing would happen.”

These spores are what Anthrax victims inhale. Once the spores get into the lungs, according to Cavanagh , they become more “comfortable,” and  start germinating. This means that the bacteria come out of the spores.

With the help of the AbrB protein in the bacteria, Anthrax toxins are produced. According to Bobay , there are three different anthrax toxins that combine to kill the anthrax victim.

“Individually they don’t kill you, but together they do,” Bobay said.

Anthrax is hard to notice, since it produces flu-like symptoms when it starts germinating in the lungs, according to Cavanagh . Furthermore, it is difficult to combat it once someone has the disease, since no antibacterial medication exists.

However, this is precisely what Cavanagh and Bobay are researching on campus.

“We’re interested in once you’ve got the anthrax, what do you do?” Cavanagh said.

According to Cavanagh , by targeting the AbrB protein, blocking it from producing the three anthrax toxins, could produce effective antibacterial medication, which could combat the anthrax disease once it has started affecting a person.

It has been four years since Bobay and Cavanagh started researching the intricate structure of the AbrB protein, something necessary in order to create a “block” to prevent the anthrax toxins from being produced, and they are continuing to research it.

By targeting the AbrB protein, according to Bobay , they are preventing anthrax from mutating into a new, stronger form, since what they are targeting is not yet anthrax.

On a more understandable scale, Bobay compared the AbrB protein to the trunk of a tree, making anthrax a branch of that tree. By chopping down the tree early on, the branch cannot grow.

However, this is not the first time N.C . State has worked on trying to protect people from anthrax. Todd Klaenhammer , professor of the food, bioprocessing and nutrition sciences, led research on a unique way to distribute the anthrax vaccine through using benign bacteria.

According to Klaenhammer , his research was geared toward putting the anthrax vaccine into a non-pathogenic strain of bacteria, which when consumed would inoculate an individual.

However, just doing this does not produce good results. According to Klaenhammer , only 30 percent of the mice who consumed the bacteria with the vaccine in it survived.

The problem, according to Klaenhammer , is that the GI tract doesn’t accept all of the vaccine bacteria, making it not as effective. Thus, his research produced a peptide; which, when attached to the vaccine bacteria, would attract the GI tract more effectively than the bacteria alone. According to Klaenhammer , these peptide-enhanced bacteria produced a 100 percent survival rate when mice consumed the new vaccine containing the peptide-enhanced bacteria.

By producing vaccine bacteria, according to Klaenhammer , public health infrastructure could package the bacteria and send them to areas of the world where shots may not be as accessible.

In developing countries, where there aren’t always sterile syringes, having a vaccine you could take by eating yogurt would have a great potential, according to Klaenhammer .

“For us, it’s not so much the disease aspect of anthrax, more that is makes a great model,” Klaenhammer said.

Therefore, Klaenhammer , could apply this type of vaccine absorption to other of vaccines.

Although many may have forgotten about anthrax and the harm it could cause in the wrong hands, research at N.C . State shows that not everyone has and that there are solutions being created locally for a global concern.