Congressman Brady said the grant supports innovative and cooperative research that is critical in the global fight against terrorism. "These times demand scientific innovation to counter the complexity of the dangers the world faces because of the spread of weapons of mass destruction."
The joint U.S.-Russian team is headed by Martin Carroll, MD, member of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and assistant professor at Penn's School of Medicine, and Rustam Usmanov of the Institute of Biochemistry in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The scientists will study certain compounds found in the spleen of the Central Asian tortoise - a species that has shown a resistance to radiation that is 50 to 100 time greater than that of a human being's or any other mammal.
According to Dr. Carroll, current medicine does not offer completely effective treatment against severe radiation injury - a factor to consider in the face of potential nuclear terrorist threats. The Central Asian tortoise could, however, offer a solution.
"The immune systems of irradiated laboratory mice, when injected with spleen extracts of the tortoise, have shown a marked increase in activity," says Dr. Carroll. "Working with our Uzbek counterparts, we plan to decode the therapeutic components in those extracts, find out how they work and then incorporate them into modern medicine."
The cooperative research anti-terrorism grant is part of a seri
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Contact: David March
david.march@uphs.upenn.edu
215-615-3353
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
24-Jul-2003