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In the past several years, the federal government has devoted increasing resources to the development of countermeasures that protect the public from chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. TAT-BH4 may one day be a viable candidate because theoretically it could be given after radiation exposure, administered in pill form, and synthesized and stored in large quantities - all properties that would be desirable for treating large groups of individuals exposed to high levels of radiation, Hotchkiss said.

The researchers contend that developing such a drug would be less challenging than finding a way to protect healthy cells from radiation therapy aimed at destroying cancer cells. "In radiation therapy, you want to give a dose of radiation to a tumor and reduce the exposure to surrounding, healthy tissues," Hunt said. "This is difficult because a drug has to distinguish between tumor and normal tissue. But with people exposed to a large dose of radiation over the entire body, you want to protect all the cells in the body. To me, that is an easier problem to solve."