Radioprotectant Can Save Life After Exposure to Deadly, Whole-Body Radiation

Studies conducted to date have demonstrated that even though a single, subcutaneous dose of a radioprotectant/radiomitigator agent is administered about 26 hours after exposure to lethal, whole-body radiation, a comparatively high percentage of test animals survive, having received no support other than normal food and water.

"Preliminary studies suggest a wider time window may well be achievable,” stated RxBio, Inc. (Johnson City, TN, USA) chairman and CEO Dr. W. Shannon McCool, the manufactures of the agent, called Rx100.

Moreover, an enhancement of total white blood cell and platelet counts in peripheral blood and significant increase of crypt regeneration in the small intestine have been observed following treatment with Rx100. Pharmacokinetic studies have revealed that Rx100 has a long serum half-life. (Test animals in the trial received additional supportive care in the form of, for instance, antibiotics.)

According to Gabor Tigyi, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of the department of physiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (Memphis, TN, USA), and coinventor of the drug, stated, "Rx100 is unique among radiation countermeasure agents in that it is an analog of an endogenous, prosurvival molecule that boosts natural mechanisms that promote and sustain cell survival while inhibiting the cascade leading to programmed cell death. While other agents shut down essential cellular-signaling mechanisms involved in radiation-induced cellular injury, tend to lack specificity, and may deliver unacceptable toxicities, Rx100 is a specific activator of natural, nontoxic, protective mechanisms of cell survival.”

Rx100 is unique as a radioprotectant/radiomitigator in that it can be administered orally or by subcutaneous injection and it possesses a range of favorable product characteristics that make it a suitable agent for use as a radiation countermeasure. The agent is a powerful radiomitigator that also ameliorates radiation-associated hematopoietic syndrome as well as gastrointestinal syndrome.

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