Smarter response

Advances could safeguard health and improve medical treatments

Radiation has a role in many positive applications, including helping to diagnose disease and providing energy. Yet, overexposure to radiation can lead to devastating illness and even death.

This duality dilemma exists on several fronts. Diagnostic x-rays--including CT scans--save countless lives each year, but these procedures carry some risk of overexposure.  Radiation therapy is an effective cancer treatment, but can lead to severe late radiation toxicity in 5-10 percent of patients. Nuclear (radiological) power has benefits as an energy source, but also could be a target for terrorists intent on causing a large-scale radiological incident.

Our scientists at the Biodesign Institute and the Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) are now playing key roles in an effort to provide protection in the event of a radiological terrorist attack.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, has established a network of multi-institution centers for countermeasures to “dirty bombs” or other attacks involving radioactive materials. As collaborators in the project, the Biodesign Institute has garnered $5.9 million and TGen $3 million, for a total of nearly $9 million in funding. The grant represents the first-ever federal award to include a university-led product development core to measure radiation exposure, also known as biodosimetry.

Columbia University serves as the lead institution for the award, and has established a Center for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation (CMCR). The center is comprised of several institutions and a multidisciplinary consortium of radiation biologists and physicists, mechanical and software engineers, product development experts, and commercial companies in the field.

In addition to Columbia, the Biodesign Institute and TGen, other institutions involved in the research consortium include: Harvard University School of Public Health; the National Cancer Institute; Sionex Inc.; and the City of New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Frederic Zenhausern, director of the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Applied NanoBioscience, leads a team of experts to coordinate all aspects of product development projects and core technologies. At TGen, Jeffrey Trent and Michael Bittner, who jointly worked on “biosignatures” of radiation response while at the National Institutes of Health, lead a team that provides informatics and biostatistical support.