Please read Dr. Aleksunes’ article in the FASEB Journal titled, “Re-Purposing Drugs as Countermeasures for Chemical Weapon Toxicities: Interactive Pharmacology Training.”
The risk of a terrorist attack in the U.S. has created challenges on how to effectively treat toxicities that result from exposure to chemical weapons. To address this concern, the U.S. has organized a trans-agency initiative across academia, government, and industry to identify drugs to treat tissue injury resulting from exposure to chemical threat agents. We sought to develop and evaluate an interactive educational session that provides hands-on instruction on how to re-purpose FDA approved drugs as therapeutics to treat toxicity from exposure to chemical weapons. As part of the Rutgers Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, 23 undergraduate students participated in a two-hour session that included: 1) an overview of chemical weapon toxicities, 2) a primer on pharmacology principles, and 3) an interactive session where teams of students were provided lists of FDA approved drugs to evaluate potential mechanisms of action and suitability as countermeasures for four chemical weapon case scenarios. To read the full article.
Re-Purposing Drugs as Countermeasures for Chemical Weapon Toxicities: Interactive Pharmacology Training. Lauren M. Aleksunes, Joshua P. Gray, Jaclynn Andres, Jeffrey D. Laskin, Debra Laskin. The FASEB Journal. First published: 13 May 2022. https://doi.org/10.1096/fasebj.2022.36.S1.R3845