Bruce E. Ivins, lo scienziato del biodefense di governo si è collegato alle spedizioni mortali dell'antrace di 2001, levate in piedi per guadagnare finanziariamente dalla spesa federale voluminosa nel guaime timore-riempito di quelle uccisioni, Los Angeles che i tempi ha imparato.

Ivins è elencato come co-inventore su due brevetti per un vaccino geneticamente costruito dell'antrace, annotazioni federali mostra. Esclusivamente, Ivins inoltre è elencato come co-inventore su un'applicazione per brevettare un additivo per vari vaccini del biodefense.

Ivins, 62, morti martedì in un suicide apparente in Maryland. Le autorità federali avevano informato il suo avvocato che le spese criminali relative alle spedizioni sarebbero archiviate.

Come co-inventore di nuovo vaccino dell'antrace, Ivins era fra quelli nella linea per raccogliere i diritti d'autore di brevetto se il prodotto fosse venuto introdurre, secondo un esecutivo al corrente della materia.

Il prodotto languished sulle mensole del laboratorio fino a settembre. 11 attacco e le spedizioni dell'antrace, dopo di che i funzionari federali hanno corso per accumulare i vaccini e gli antidoti contro terrorismo biologico potenziale.

Un'azienda di biotecnologia di Francisco-zona di San, VaxGen, ha vinto un contratto federale degno $877.5 milioni per fornire alle serie di nuovo vaccino. Il contratto era in primo luogo ricevuto a norma di legislazione promossa dal presidente Bush, denominato il Project BioShield.

Un esecutivo che era al corrente della materia ha detto che, come stato del relativo acquisto del vaccino dall'esercito, VaxGen aveva accosentito ai ricavati vendita-relativi della parte con gli inventori.

“Una certa proporzione sarebbe stata ripartita con gli inventori,„ ha detto l'esecutivo, che ha parlato anonimo a causa di riservatezza contrattuale. “Ivins si sarebbe levato in piedi per fare i dieci delle migliaia dei dollari, ma non di milioni.„

Due anni dopo che il contratto ricevi a VaxGen, il patto è stato terminato quando l'azienda non potrebbe trasportare i relativi batch nei termini. Il termine ha significato che VaxGen non era paid, né erano Ivins ed i suoi co-inventori.

Ivins inoltre è stato elencato come uno di due inventori di un altro prodotto biodefense-relativo che ha vinto la garanzia federale.

Secondo la loro domanda ancora-in corso di Stati Uniti patent, the inventors hoped the additive would bolster certain vaccines’ capacity to prevent infections “from bioterrorism agents.”

From December 2002 to December 2003, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency committed $12 million for additional testing of the experimental additive. That research money was designated for Coley Pharmaceutical Group, which was developing the additive. The company was acquired last fall by Pfizer Corp.

Samuel C. Miller, a Georgetown Law Center professor who is a patent-law expert, said that the extent to which Ivins stood to gain from the two issued patents or the one that remains pending hinges on the terms of the related contracts.

“It will depend on the business arrangements that are in place,” Miller said.

On Friday, colleagues and critics of Ivins pondered the mystery within the mystery: If Ivins did it, why?

One former senior official with Ivins’ employer, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, whom the FBI questioned at length about Ivins, said he believed his former colleague wanted more attention — and resources — shifted to biological defense.

“It had to have been a motive,” said the former official, who suspects that Ivins was the culprit. “I don’t think he ever intended to kill anybody. He just wanted to prove ‘Look, this is possible.’ He probably had no clue that it would aerosolize through those envelopes and kill those postal workers.”

Of the five people killed by the mailings, two worked for the U.S. Postal Service in the Washington, D.C., area; one was a photo editor in Palm Beach County, Fla.; another was a hospital supply provider in New York City; and the last known victim was a 94-year-old woman in Connecticut.

Several letters were addressed to prominent people — two U.S. senators and NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, for example.

For nearly 30 years, Ivins served far from the limelight, a PhD microbiologist who drew a civil servant’s pay while handling some of the most deadly pathogens on Earth — live spores of anthrax.

The deadly mailings of anthrax-tainted envelopes transported Ivins from the backwater of government scientific research at Ft. Detrick, Md., to the center of the nation’s fledgling war on terrorism. It also spurred multibillion-dollar national security initiatives.

Ivins was thrust into the federal investigation of the mailings as well. He helped the FBI analyze anthrax recovered from a letter addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

He also played a lead role in helping a private company, BioPort, win regulatory approval to continue making the vaccine required for U.S. service personnel deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions.

From 2000 to early 2002, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID helped BioPort resolve problems related to the potency of the vaccine. Because of those and other manufacturing difficulties, production had been suspended. The efforts of Ivins and his colleagues helped BioPort win FDA approval to resume production.

At a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID were bestowed the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to nonmilitary employees of the Defense Department.

“Awards are nice,” Ivins said in accepting the honor. “But the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on line.”

The Times sought earlier this year to obtain annual financial disclosure statements filed by Ivins with his employer. USAMRIID spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said last month that Ivins had filed financial reports exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Ivins’ apparent suicide and the Justice Department’s decision to bring criminal charges against him were first reported Thursday night by The Times. On Friday, Ivins’ lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, defended his client and said that Ivins had cooperated fully with the FBI.

“We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial,” Kemp said, implicitly confirming that Ivins had been about to be formally charged. “The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people. . . . In Dr. Ivins’ case, it led to his untimely death.”

Kemp did not respond to telephone calls and e-mails for this article.

Times researcher Janet Lundblad contributed to this report.