Dartmouth Medical School researchers are taking charge in the field of assessing radiation exposure in survivors of radioactivity-related disasters, according to Dartmouth Medical School radiology professor Harold Swartz.
As the principal investigator and director of the Dart-Dose Center for Medical Countermeasures against Radiation, Swartz negotiated a $16.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, which was awarded to the Center to fund research over the next five years. The Center will lead a consortium of four institutions in producing portable devices that use electron paramagnetic resonance to measure exposure to radiation with human teeth and nails, according to a DMS press release.
The center will receive $3.3 million each year for the next five years, Swartz said.
"In terms of Dartmouth, this is a big deal," Swartz said. "This grant is the largest such grant Dartmouth has ever had."
Swartz explained that the Center is working on three methods to measure radiation exposure. One method uses teeth, another uses clipped fingernails and the third uses nails still attached to a living human body. The method of using nails in vivo, or attached to a body, is in its early stages of development, but looks particularly promising, he said. The method that uses clipped fingernails to measure radiation is "moderately developed," according to Swartz.
"The [method] that's most advanced is the one using teeth, and this one particular approach we've been talking to General Electric about," Swartz said.
Producing a functioning device that would be included in the National Strategic Stockpile, a national repository of critical medical equipment and supplies for use in the event of emergencies, is within reach in the near future, according to Swartz.
"It looks like we're going to get funded by [the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority] in the order of $30-35 million distributed over five years for us to produce an actual device," he said.
The device must be transportable and operable by non-expert operators in the case of an emergency, Swartz said. The task of making such an instrument in mass quantities requires the expertise of General Electric, he said.
"For two years, we'll work with GE and essentially perfect the instrument, making it completely automated," Swartz said. "In the last three years, we'll continue to improve the instrument, and GE will establish ways to manufacture a device that is dependable and robust."
Electron paramagnetic resonance is a method of magnetic resonance that the device uses to measure radiation.
"Dartmouth is the only place in the world where we've gotten to the point that we're making these measurements in people," Swartz said.
The Center is also researching EPR as a potential way to increase the effectiveness of cancer therapy, according to Swartz.
