A different friend emails what serves in substance as a rebuttal to the point made by Dr. Melanie Ulrich, Ivins colleague. She and other experts should be contacted to see if they agree. He is oft-quoted and has a distinguished University position.
“Two points :
“(1) A SpeedVac, when coupled to a dry ice trap or condenser (the
configuration most frequently encountered in biomedical research labs),
functions as a lyophilizer. (In many, if not most, cases in which
post-1980s biomedical research papers state that a sample was “lyophilized,”
the papers refer to use of a SpeedVac.)
“(2) 1-4 g of wet bacterial cells or spores occupies a volume less than 5
ml.
(A 1 liter culture presumably would be required to produce 1-4 g of dried
bacterial cells or spores...but more than 99.5% of the 1 liter starting
volume first would be removed, in seconds to minutes, by decanting,
centrifugation, or filtration, leaving less than 0.5% of the 1 liter
starting volume to be dried.)
In short:
(1) SpeedVac = lyophilizer.
(2) If it would take 1 h to process a 1 ml sample, then it would take 1 h to
five 1 ml samples (since a SpeedVac, as most frequently configured, holds,
and simultaneously processes, up to 1 ml samples), and thus it would take 1
h to dry sufficient spore paste to yield 1-4 g of dried spores.