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KABOOM, nuclear meltdown. Exposure to DNA-damaging fallout happens in minutes, but getting treatment to combat the effects may take days. A new drug could help: in mice, it reduced death rates from radiation sickness even if given three days after exposure.
After a radiation hit, cells that are too damaged to repair themselves self-destruct, says at the University of Tennessee. This leads to death if enough are affected. A naturally occurring molecule called lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) seems to give cells a better chance of survival.
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In 2007, Tigyi and his colleagues developed a drug that , but it wasn鈥檛 potent enough to be useful. Now they have used a computer model to tweak the drug鈥檚 structure to make a more powerful version, called DBIBB.
When mice were given DBIBB 26 hours after exposure to high levels of radiation, 13 of 14 animals were still alive two weeks later. Without the drug, 12 of 14 died. But prompt treatment isn鈥檛 always possible, so Tigyi also ran tests to see what would happen if they didn鈥檛 give mice DBIBB until 72 hours after exposure. One month later, 14 of the 15 mice were alive (Chemistry & Biology, ).
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒rug buys time for nuclear survivors鈥�