Dr. Gary Long is a senior scientist for Tetracore, Inc., a biotechnology research and development laboratory that creates devices for detecting infectious diseases and biological warfare threat agents. Prior to co-founding Tetracore, Inc. in 1999, he served as head of the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP) at the Naval Medical Research Institute. Dr. Long’s program was one of the first to develop methods for rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identification of biological warfare agents. He has also served as an inspector for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and performed inspections of biological warfare facilities. In this presentation he will describe what the rapid immunologic identification tests are, including their use in the clinical laboratory and role in field identification, and discuss molecular identification as it relates to West Nile virus, foot-and-mouth disease virus, and agents of bioterrorism.