• Focus on the customer—Through a broad-based, customer-oriented program, the Institute maintains the research program essential to the development of applications that meet the ever-changing needs of the military services. AFRRI addresses the services' requirements simultaneously from three perspectives: prevention of health hazards, assessment of biological damage, and treatment of injuries resulting from exposure to ionizing radiation alone or in combination with chemical or biological agents encountered on the battlefield.
• Military relevance—Advances in radioprotection strategies enable military forces to operate, when required, in nuclear or radioactive combat environments while minimizing both long- and short-term risks of the consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. Accurate casualty prediction models promote effective command decisions and force structure planning. Advanced biological dosimetry methodology is used in triage, treatment decisions, and risk assessment. Together, the results of the three research thrusts improve therapeutic strategies for the treatment and prevention of early and long-term health effects and mitigate the risks to our personnel and their offspring.
• Unique contributions—In addition, AFRRI provides specialized expertise to evaluate and model radiological insults combined with other battlefield insults such as infection, disease, and biological warfare and chemical warfare agents. AFRRI acts as the catalyst, in collaborations with the worldwide scientific community, to publish medical and technical information based on data from nuclear accidents or incidents in other countries, including those in states of the former Soviet Union.
• Civilian applications—Humanity in general benefits from research and development in these areas; such developments are applicable to rescue operations involving, for example, terrorist actions or industrial nuclear accidents. The core competence in radiation biophysics and the technical database developed from AFRRI research are also applicable to astronauts exposed to space radiation.

• Countermeasure development—With an understanding of the mechanisms of radiation damage, AFRRI scientists are pursuing new and improved pharmacological approaches to prevent the life-threatening and health-degrading effects of ionizing radiation. Using novel cellular and molecular approaches and animal models, they move these potentially life-saving drugs from discovery through the Food and Drug Administration approval process.
• Assessing the risks—Accurate casualty prediction models promote effective command decisions and force structure planning. AFRRI research examines the impact of radiation injury combined with additional trauma, disease, chemical exposures, and other battlefield challenges. Investigations also assess the potential health effects of internal contamination and metal toxicity of militarily relevant metals that may become embedded as shrapnel, such as depleted uranium and tungsten alloys.
• Biological dosimetry—Scientists also seek to develop rapid, high-precision analytical methods that assess radiation exposure doses from clinical samples and thus aid in the triage and medical management of radiological casualties. Researchers are developing dose-assessment assays that test easily obtained samples such as a drop of blood, urine, or hair with transportable equipment. With innovative approaches, they also are improving the accuracy, dose range, ease of use, and speed of classical biodosimetry, which is based on cytogenetic damage.

• Countermeasure development
  1. Introduction of a novel class of radiation countermeasures (5-androstene steroids):
     • Elucidated signaling molecules involved in hematopoietic niche function of human osteoblasts after radiation injury (Experimental Hematology 37: 52–64, 2009)
     • Demonstrated radiation countermeasure efficacy of a superoxide dismutase/catalase mimetic (Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology 30: 271–290, 2008)
     • Analyzed pharmacokinetics and cytokine gene expression in irradiated mice after 5-AED administration (Experimental and Molecular Pathology, 84:178–188, 2008)
     • Reported 5-AED promotes survival of gamma-irradiated human hematopoietic progenitors through induction of NF-kappa B activation and G-CSF expression (Molecular Pharmacology, 72: 370–379, 2007)
     • Showed 5-AED enhanced survival in irradiated rhesus macaques. Prediction of survival correlated most closely with days of thrombocytopenia, not neutropenia (International Immunopharmacology 7: 500–505, 2007)
     • Demonstrated 5-AED-induced shortening of duration of severe neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and anemia in irradiated rhesus macaques (International Immunopharmacology 6:1706–1713, 2006)
     • Documented 5-AED-induced increases in circulating granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) in irradiated and unirradiated mice (Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology 27:521–534, 2005)
     • Elucidated molecular specificity of 5-AED in radioprotection, indicating which chemical groups on the molecule are beneficial, supporting the hypotheses that 5-AED is the active molecule after systemic administration, and that efficacy is not due to activation of sex steroid receptors (Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology 27:15–32, 2005)
  2. Nutraceuticals as radioprotectants
     • Documented effects of genistein on radiation-responsive gene expression (Radiation Measurements 42: 1152–1157, 2007)
     • Assessed effects of genistein on hematopoietic progenitor cell recovery in irradiated mice (International Journal of Radiation Biology 83: 141–151, 2007)
     • Demonstrated induction of cytokines by Vitamin E-related analogs (Experimental and Molecular Pathology, 81:55–61, 2006)
     • 2003 and 2005: Entered into Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with Humanetics Corporation to jointly develop oral agents that show promise in supporting and protecting the immune system against challenges from exposure to radiation
     • Characterized radioprotectant properties of soy-derived isoflavones (Journal of Applied Toxicology, 23:379–385, 2003)
  3. Demonstrated beneficial effects of N-palmitoylation of IL-1 radioprotective domain (Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology 26:193–202, 2004) (Peptides 26:413–418, 2005)
  4. Analyzed the effects of isoflurane anesthesia on numbers of circulating white blood cells (Contemporary Topics 43:8–12, 2004)
  5. Contributed to guidance for medical management of the acute radiation syndrome following terrorist acts (Annals of Internal Medicine 140:1037–1051, 2004)
  6. Development of chemopreventive strategies for radiation-induced cancer: targeting radiation-induced genetic alterations (Military Medicine 167 Suppl. 1:54–56, 2002)
• Assessing the risks
  1. Helped determine the health effects of shrapnel from tungsten alloy-based munitions by testing a rodent model system that mimics shrapnel loads seen in wounded personnel from the 1991 Persian Gulf War (Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(6):729–734, 2005)
  2. Demonstrated that depleted uranium (DU) altered in an in vivo environment may be involved in the pathogenesis of DU-induced leukemia in an animal model (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 279(1–2):97–104, 2005)
  3. Showed that DU and rWNiCo (tungsten, nickel, cobalt) can activate gene expression through several signal transduction pathways that may be involved in the toxicity and tumorigenicity of both DU and heavy-metal tungsten alloys (HMTAs) (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 255(1-2):247–256, 2004)
  4. Tested precision of determining the concentration and isotopic ratio of depleted uranium in urine via isotope ratio measurements using large-bore, direct injection, high efficiency nebulizer-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (Applied Spectroscopy, 58(9):1044–1050, 2004)
• Biodosimetry
  1. Demonstrated use of a centrifuge-based automated blood cell counter for radiation dose assessment (Military Medicine 171(9):908–912, 2006)
  2. Recommended countermeasure enhancements for mass-casualty radiological incidents/terrorism based on early-response biological dosimetry (Health Physics 89(5):494–504, 2005)
  3. Described a rapid method for inducing premature chromosome condenstion (PCC) in "resting" human peripheral blood lymphocytes (HPBLs) (Methods in Molecular Biology, 291:49–57, 2005)
  4. Developed radiation assessment diagnostic technologies applicable both for medical radiological defense applications (e.g., spaceflight) as well as general medical-related care (Advances in Space Research, 31(6):1487–1493, 2003)

A new doctoral program in radiation biology has been initiated as a track within the Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) Program at the Uniformed Services University (USU) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Within this track, students will learn the biology and physics of radiation. Building on a strong and broad basic science background, they will develop the research skills to address the growing scientific needs in radiation biology and develop an understanding of the policy context that is creating the renewed interest in this field.

The radiation biology faculty members are engaged in many exciting areas of research. They are exploring the mechanisms of injury from ionizing radiation in vitro and in vivo animal models, developing new approaches to prevent the life-threatening and health-degrading effects of ionizing radiation, and investigating biomarkers of injury that might be used to assess radiation exposure. The extensive radiation facilities housed at AFRRI can simulate almost any radiation exposure scenario in animal and cellular experiments.