Application of Agilent’s Life Sciences & Chemical Analysis Capabilities to Homeland Security
Agilent is a worldwide leader of chemical and biological analysis solutions and the leading global supplier of:
- Gas Chromatography (GC) and GC/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS)
- High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and LC/Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS)
- Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
- Microfluidic Lab-on-a-chip Technology
Researchers working in a range of applications — from forensic and clinical to pharmaceutical or environmental — rely on Agilent’s instruments to analyze their diverse sample types with high accuracy and precision.
This valuable and extensive real-world experience can be applied to help defend against domestic terrorism. Agilent has a deep understanding of the specific needs of homeland security developed through 20+ years of collaborative work with the U.S. Military and other partners.
The “response chain” below demonstrates how Agilent Life Science and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) systems can be applied at the different stages of a potential threat.
Detection and Prevention: Terrorism depends upon surprise. A critical priority named in President Bush's National Strategy is the development of an intelligence and warning system that can detect terrorist activity before it manifests itself in an attack. Agilent’s LSCA division provides forward deployed chemical/biological detection systems to monitor for agents or agent precursors at key installations or sensitive infrastructure sites.
Response & Recovery: We must prepare to minimize the damage and recover from any future terrorist attacks that may occur despite our nation's best efforts at prevention. This includes rapid assessment of the nature of the event, the extent of damage and/or exposure (in the case of a chemical, biological, or radiological event) and deployment of the appropriate countermeasures. Should an event occur, LSCA offers transportable chemical/biological detection systems that can be deployed directly on site to identify the nature of the threat and to establish perimeters for responders and civilians.
Consequence Management & Mitigation: The critical task of managing the post-incident recovery and/or decontamination operations follows the initial response phase. LSCA provides sensitive, confirmatory chemical/biological detection systems for assessing the progress of on-going decontamination operations and confirming complete remediation of the incident site. Only at that stage can reconstruction plans be implemented.
Attribution & Forensics: The final task following a terrorist incident is the forensic investigation of the event for the purposes of identifying the perpetrators and fortifying our nation's defenses to prevent similar attacks in the future. This, in turn, strengthens our intelligence and warning systems thus bringing the process full circle. LSCA provides the analytical tools that assist Federal, State, and Local law enforcement in their efforts to determine the source/cause of an incident and to enact enhanced security measures. |