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Cure For Radiation Sickness Found?
Summit writes "A scientist has claimed to have discovered a radioprotectant that all but eliminates acute radiation sickness even in cases of lethal doses of radiation in tests on rats and monkeys, when injected up to 72 hours after exposure. They also claim the drug, a protein, has no observed negative effects in humans. They have not irradiated any people just yet, but if this turns out to be true, it could mean everything from curing cancer to making manned interplanetary space expeditions feasible... not to mention treatment for radiation exposures in nuclear/radiological accidents/attacks. If this drug works, it would mean a true breakthrough as past experiments with radioprotectants were not particularly promising in any respect." The only source for the story at this time is an exclusive in YNet News, a site with the subtitle "Israel At Your Fingertips." Such a radioprotectant would be huge news for Israel. Make of it what you will.
There's more information on Medical News today if anyone wants a more medical take on this and a less ... Israeli interpretation (I don't know about you but I'm not too hung up on what nationality the researchers are and am more so interested in the technical details). Their 2008 annual report sheds a lot of insight on this as well. Although this information has been public knowledge since the beginning of the year, it should be interesting to watch their stock fluctuate throughout today.
My work here is dung.
Apoptosis does not occur randomly. You must trigger it. In this case, with ionizing radiation-induced DNA damage, you have MMR proteins and the ATM/ATR system signaling to activate p53-dependent apoptosis. Since there are a number of checkpoints along the way, the cell that proceeds to apoptosis has already failed the evolutionarily-conserved tests for genome integrity and capability to repair its DNA damage.
It's is not feasible, given our knowledge of molecular biology, to prevent apoptosis after massive radiation exposure, without virtually guaranteeing a relatively quick (on the order of weeks to months) death from resultant tumors. The cell death mechanisms are there for a reason.
P.S. If you think dying from multiple foci of aggressive invasive lymphomas over a period of a couple of months is less painful than dying of massive GI epithelial and hematopoietic failure due to radiation sickness over a period of one week or less, then you haven't seen many cancer patients.