Chemical warfare antidote grant awarded

SAN ANTONIO, June 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has awarded a grant to the Southwest Research Institute for the development of a chemical warfare antidote.

San Antonio-based SwRI was awarded a $1.3 million grant for the development of a nerve agent antidote. Officials say soldiers are at risk of facing potential chemical warfare that attacks the body's central nervous system. With the grant money, SwRI says it will develop an injection-administered antidote.

SwRI's study is testing whether their antidote, MMB4, reverses the symptoms caused by a chemical warfare agent.

"The goal of this study is to develop an operationally stable formulation of MMB4 that is able to be absorbed quickly by the body, that will not hinder atropine, which is used in combination to effectively treat the effects of a chemical nerve agent," Joe McDonough, SwRI's Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division principal investigator and manager of the Synthesis and Drug Delivery Section, said in a statement.