The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $19.2 million grant to UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey to support the creation of a Center of Excellence focused on the development of new and improved medical countermeasures against chemical threats.

The new Center will be directed by Dr. Jeffrey Laskin of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and will include faculty from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

The Center is funded by the NIH under a special program known as CounterACT. It is also funded by the federal government's Project Bioshield as a national security priority to expedite research on the most promising scientific discoveries. Investigators in the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/Rutgers University CounterACT Research Center of Excellence will focus on the development of drugs to treat individuals exposed to sulfur mustard. This gas, which causes skin, eyes, and lungs to burn and blister, is easy to make and transport, and therefore thought to present a likely terror threat.

Dr. Barbara Brodsky, a professor of biochemistry at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has led a team of researchers that the Research and Development Council of New Jersey selected as one of this year’s recipients of the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award.

Dr. Brodsky's patent involves a new method of transforming collagen, the most abundant protein found in the human body, into biomaterials that can, among their many uses, become artificial skin, bone substitutes, nerve regeneration tubes, artificial blood vessels, and hemostatic wound dressings.

Dr. Adam M. Finkel, a professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the UMDNJ-School of Public Health, received the prestigious David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health from the American Public Health Association (APHA), during the organization’s 134th annual meeting last week in Boston. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to public health through science-based advocacy.

Dr. Finkel, who is one of the nation's leading experts in risk assessment for environmental and occupational health, is a former Rocky Mountain regional administrator of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). His findings on the dangers of beryllium to OSHA inspectors led to the adoption of a medical monitoring program.