Counteract.rutgers.edu Website Review

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a grant to Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University to support a Center of Excellence focused on the development of new and improved medical countermeasures against high priority chemical threats. This Center is focusing on developing drugs to treat vesicant poisoning. Although vesicants have been studied for more than 80 years, the mechanisms mediating their actions remain unknown; moreover, to date, there are no effective medical countermeasures for exposure to these chemicals. In collaborative studies with MRIGlobal and Battelle Memorial Institute, members of the Center have identified lead compounds against vesicants which are being optimized for IND-enabling studies. Studies are in progress evaluating the efficacy of these potential countermeasures in model systems. New drug formulations and methods of drug delivery are being optimized. In addition, Research and Development Projects are underway to identify specific mechanisms of action of these compounds and potential new targets for thera*eutic intervention in three major vesicant targets: the eye, the skin and the lung. Investigators on these projects work closely with a Pharmacology and Drug Development Core and a Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutics Core with considerable expertise in drug development, providing insights to facilitate the development of countermeasures. The research laboratories of each Core group are members of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), a facility jointly sponsored by Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University. An active Training and Education Program directed at health care providers at Rutgers University, Rutgers University School of Public Health, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, The School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College and the Health Sciences Program at Lehigh The principal investigators include Dr. Jeffrey Laskin as the overall director of the Center; Dr. Donald Gerecke at Rutgers as co-director