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- Posted Monday September 26, 2005
Biodesign Institute and TGen Awarded Grants to Help Lessen Threat of Radiological Terrorist Event
Local entities net nearly $9 million in a multi-institutional
effort to develop responses to "dirty bombs" and other
threats
The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and the
Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) have been awarded key roles
in an effort to provide protection in the event of a radiological
terrorist attack.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of
the National Institutes of Health, is funding the establishment of
a network of multi-institution centers for countermeasures to
"dirty bombs" or other attacks involving radioactive materials. As
collaborators in the project, the Biodesign Institute will garner
$5.9 million and TGen will receive $3 million, for a total of
nearly $9 million in funding over the next five years.
The grant represents the first-ever federal award to include a
university-led product development core to measure radiation
exposure, also known as biodosimetry. Frederic Zenhausern, director
of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Applied NanoBioscience,
will lead a team of experts to coordinate all aspects of product
development projects and core technologies.
"Monitoring the biological response of civilian and military
populations when exposed to low dose radiation of a dirty bomb or
other environmental radioactive threat could significantly improve
risk management," said Zenhausern, who is also a professor in ASU's
Fulton School of Engineering.
At TGen, Jeffrey Trent and Michael Bittner, who jointly worked on
"biosignatures" of radiation response while at the National
Institutes of Health, will lead a team that will provide
informatics and biostatistical support.
"TGen's focus on mathematical tools, combined with ASU's
sophisticated biocomputing platforms are a key component to the
consortium's goal of developing diagnostic tests following a
potentially catastrophic radiological incident," said Trent. "The
ability to rapidly analyze an individual's genetic signature of
radiation exposure levels could be remarkably important in triaging
patients."
Columbia University will serve as the lead institution for the
award, which will establish a Center for Medical Countermeasures
Against Radiation (CMCR). The center will be comprised of several
institutions and a multidisciplinary consortium of radiation
biologists and physicists, mechanical and software engineers,
product development experts, and commercial companies in the
field.
In addition to Columbia, the Biodesign Institute and TGen, other
institutions involved in the research consortium include: Harvard
University School of Public Health; the National Cancer Institute;
Sionex Inc.; and the City of New York Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene.
If there were a large-scale radiological incident in a U.S. city,
tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of individuals would need to
be immediately screened for radiation exposure. Those with high
levels of radiation would need to be quickly triaged into
treatment.
Unfortunately, there is currently no rapid post-exposure method
available to measure the radiation dose received by individuals in
the event of a large-scale scenario. Current technologies can
assess only a few hundred individuals per day. A second critical
shortcoming in existing capabilities is that few medical products
exist to counter the variety of acute and long-term injuries that
can result from nuclear or radiological attacks.
The formation of the CMCR is an effort to address these current
weaknesses. It reflects the growing concern of such attacks with
the increased activity of global terrorist organizations and a rise
in illicit trafficking of radioactive materials.
"The threat of radiological terror is very real," said George
Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute who also chairs the
Department of Defense's task force on bioterrorism. "Most scenarios
will present major organizational challenges to government, medical
facilities and emergency first responders in the event of a
catastrophe."
Potential radiation exposure scenarios may include the detonation
of nuclear weapons, terrorist attacks on nuclear reactors, or the
dispersal of radioactive substances with the use of conventional
explosives, i.e. "dirty bombs," that could result in mass
casualties.
Zenhausern's team, which includes Carl Yamashiro and Ralf Lenigk,
will work on devices that can rapidly distinguish individuals who
need therapy from those who do not, and that can measure internal
and external exposure not just after exposure, but during treatment
and recovery stages. This will involve development of minimally
invasive biodosimetry devices and techniques, biomarker assays, and
other automated biology-based, high-throughput diagnostic
systems.
"The goal of our approach is to develop a tiny, miniaturized
cartridge to provide rapid, frequent testing that is also sensitive
enough to assess the biological impact of radiation for a set of
specific genes that indicate radiation exposure," said Zenhausern.
The work will include designing an integrated self-containing blood
sample preparation and gene expression profiling device and that
will be portable and suitable for mass production.
TGen researchers will be working with long time radiation biology
collaborators at Harvard and Columbia to specify sets of genes that
have both immediate and long-lasting responses to radiation in
circulating blood cells.
"By studying the gene expression response of blood cells to
radiation in a variety of therapeutic exposures that patients
experience during medical imaging, radiation therapy, and to more
extreme radiation," said TGen's Bittner, "it is possible to develop
a panel of tests, which can be carried out on a blood sample that
will indicate the extent of radiation exposure a person received
during a radiation release." This will allow rapid determination of
the appropriate types of treatment for those at risk for
exposure.
Additional components coordinated by others in the consortium
include several methodologies and devices to accurately and rapidly
detect radiation from whole body exposure to minute changes in
cells, including robotic methods to measure damage to DNA and
cells, biochips to monitor gene expression levels, and signature
identification of metabolites found in sweat and urine.
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The Biodesign Institute at ASU integrates research in diverse
disciplines including biology, engineering, medicine, physics,
information technology and cognitive science to accelerate
discoveries into beneficial uses.
About TGen
TGen is a not-for-profit organization whose primary mission is to
make and translate genomic discoveries into advances in human
health. Translational genomics research is a relatively new field
employing innovative advances arising from the Human Genome Project
to apply to the development of diagnostics, prognostics and
therapies for cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes and other
complex diseases.
