Editing Anthrax (section)

=== Engineered strains ===
{{incomplete list|date=April 2018}}
* The Sterne strain of anthrax, named after the [[Trieste]]-born immunologist [[Max Sterne]], is an attenuated strain used as a vaccine, which contains only the [[anthrax toxin]] virulence plasmid and not the polyglutamic acid capsule expressing plasmid.
* [[Strain 836]], created by the Soviet bioweapons program in the 1980s, was later called by the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' "the most virulent and vicious strain of anthrax known to man".<ref>{{cite web | vauthors = [[David Willman|Willman D]] | url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jul-01-na-alibek1-story.html | title = Selling the Threat of Bioterrorism | work = [[Los Angeles Times]] | date = 1 July 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | vauthors = [[Annie Jacobsen|Jacobsen A ]] | date = 2015 | title = The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency | location = New York | publisher = [[Little, Brown and Company]] | page = 293 }}</ref>
* The virulent [[Ames strain]], which was used in the [[2001 anthrax attacks]] in the United States, has received the most news coverage of any anthrax outbreak. The Ames strain contains two virulence [[plasmids]], which separately encode for a three-protein toxin, called [[anthrax toxin]], and a polyglutamic acid [[bacterial capsule|capsule]].
* Nonetheless, the [[Vollum strain]], developed but never used as a [[biological weapon]] during the [[Second World War]], is much more dangerous. The Vollum (also incorrectly referred to as Vellum) strain was isolated in 1935 from a cow in [[Oxfordshire]]. This same strain was used during the [[Gruinard Island|Gruinard]] bioweapons trials. A variation of Vollum, known as "Vollum 1B", was used during the 1960s in the US and UK bioweapon programs. Vollum 1B is widely believed<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/armyanthraxvictimsblood.html |access-date = 6 August 2009 |title = Army harvested victims' blood to boost anthrax |date = 23 December 2001 | vauthors = Shane S |work = Boston Sun |publisher = UCLA Dept. of Epidemiology site |url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091229122543/http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/armyanthraxvictimsblood.html |archive-date = 29 December 2009 |df = dmy-all}}</ref> to have been isolated from William A. Boyles, a 46-year-old scientist at the [[United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories|US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories]] at [[Fort Detrick|Camp (later Fort) Detrick]], [[Maryland]], who died in 1951 after being accidentally infected with the Vollum strain.