Neurology Prof. Jaideep Kapur has received a five-year, $2.3 million research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to fund his research in the treatment of nerve agent-induced seizures. The goal, Kapur said, is to help protect the civilian population against a bio-terror attack.
Kapur said his research is focused mainly on the development of treatment after a chemical attack in the United States. Kapur said U.S. military forces are pretreated against the agents, and have a different process in place for treatment. If there were to be an attack, however, on the untreated civilian population, there is no efficient treatment strategy in place.
The research will begin as the team "tries to find out mechanisms similar to the nerve agents," Kapur said. They will not be directly using nerve agents in the research, but will instead find mechanisms that act in a similar way.
"The research will be an extension of ongoing work to have a direct application to Nerve Agent induced seizures," Kapur said.
The purpose, he added, is to understand different mechanisms about nerve agents -- toxic chemicals that destroy the human nervous system -- and observe the way they affect the human nervous system. The seizure condition, known as status epilepticus, is characterized by recurring seizures lasting a few moments to long hours. Such seizures can lead to permanent brain damage or death.
Kapur and his team believes that nerve agent-induced seizure disorders affect the brain and respond to treatment in a similar manner to other types of long-term seizure disorders. Kapur said he will work toward improving existing treatments of non-nerve agent-caused disorders, and increase their success rates. The treatments then could be used toward the treatment of nerve agent-induced seizure disorders.
Ronald Turner, associate dean of clinical research at the Medical School, explained the funding is given in yearly increments, and is "essentially a contract between the University and the Institute". Each year the research team will provide a progress report to the Institute, and after it is reviewed, money for the next year's research will be given.
In order to receive the grant, the research team submitted a proposal describing the desired research. The proposal was then scored by a review board at the National Institute of Health and compared with other proposals. The proposals with the highest scores then received grant money.
Kapur first became involved in this type of research in 2001, when the United States Army asked his advice on the treatment of nerve agent-induced seizures, as Kapur has long worked with treatments of long-term seizure disorders.
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