DARPA and others develop more effective anti-radiation treatments and reminder of Toshiba new system for removing radiation contamination

There are several new treatments for radiation. They can taken up to a day after exposure and at least one can be taken to mitigate damage before exposure. There is also new systems for more effectively removing radioactive material from contaminated land. There are several ways to reinforce buildings to make them more damage and fire resistant.

Nextbigfuture believes that civil defense should be reinvented to reduce the property and health damage by hundreds of times.

The antiradiation treatments would also help those who are undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. Dwave system quantum computer also enable treatment plans that reduce unneeded radiation exposure for cancer treatment.

1. Scientists working on a DARPA-funded research effort have determined that an antibiotic and a protein fight radiation sickness more effectively when they are combined than when used separately. While doctors already use antibiotics to treat radiation sickness, researchers have found that adding bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), a protein found in immune systems, allowed them to increase the survival rates of mice exposed to toxic levels of radiation to nearly 80 percent. More important, this treatment with BPI and antibiotics was effective up to a day after exposure to radiation.

“The fact that this treatment can be administered up to a day after radiation exposure is so important,” said Millie Donlon, DARPA’s program manager for this effort. “This is because most of the existing treatments we have require they be administered within hours of exposure to potentially lethal radiation – something that might not always be possible in the confusion that would likely follow such an exposure event.” Humans are known to be more sensitive than mice to the endotoxins treated by BPI, making a treatment such as this potentially more effective in humans. These are commonly used drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in other scenarios such as bone marrow transplants and radiation treatment. They also have a long shelf life, making them easy to stockpile for future use.

Researchers have yet to determine why the combination of BPI and antibiotics work so well together. They’ve found, however, that mice that received both of these drugs not only had higher survival rates, but also started generating new bloods cells more quickly. This has potential for positive impact on many logistical considerations tied to radiation exposure, such as need for hospital time and requirements for donors and transfusions.

This research is the result of earlier efforts in this area conducted as part of DARPA’s Radiation Bio-Dosimetry (RaBiD) program. RaBiD was an effort to develop non- or minimally invasive, portable and low-cost radiation bio-dosimeters, as well as novel radiation mitigation technologies that can be administered 12 or more hours after exposure and provide better than 90-percent survivability to humans

2. Onconova Ex-RAD provides protection from ionizing radiation with minimal observed adverse events in Phase I studies. The well-tolerated profile of Ex-RAD aligns well with needs of military or first responder personnel, as these individuals cannot afford to be affected by performance-limiting adverse events.

Unlike most radiation protectors, Ex-RAD is not a free-radical scavenger, chelator, or cell cycle arrestor. Ex-RAD employs a novel mode of action, involving the enhancement of internal DNA repair pathways, which significantly reduces levels of p53, p21, bax, c-abl and p73 proteins-key players in the DNA damage cascade induced upon exposure to harmful radiation. These mechanisms have been shown to cause a halt in cell death pathways and lead to increased recovery and survival of irradiated cells. These novel mechanisms of action accompanied by minimal side effects suggest that Ex-RAD could be useful both as a prophylactic agent and as an agent for mitigation. Ex-RAD is formulated for both injection and oral dosage providing potential flexibility in broad use settings.

3. Toshiba has a system that is currently capable of dealing with 1.7 tons of radioactive soil per day, but it is theoretically possible for a machine capable of processing 100 times that amount. The device uses crystalline adsorbents that have the ability to selectivity remove radioactive ions from liquids, soil and waste.

The equipment fits in a truck container

Buildings can be reinforced with blast resistant wall paper, hurriquake nails, or as Mythbuster’s TV showed truck bed liner material.

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