Scientist Neutralizes Nerve Agents

U.S. chemist Frank Raushel says he’s using a $1.2 million federal grant to develop an enzyme that might neutralize a type of deadly nerve agent.

Raushel, a professor at Texas A&M University, said he’s focusing his research on neutralizing organophosphates, which initially were used as insecticides during the 1930s, but were soon being used during World War II as chemical warfare nerve agents.

In 1988, an Iraqi Kurdish village was exposed to multiple chemical agents, killing about 5,000 of the town’s 50,000 residents. After the incident, traces of the organophosphates sarin, tabun and VX were discovered.

Scientists have since determined a bacterial enzyme, phosphotriesterase, can recognize and destroy the toxicity of a broad spectrum of organophosphate nerve agents.

Raushel is using his four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to design a bacterial enzyme that can detect, destroy and detoxify organophosphates that pose the most serious threats to human health.