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Research Highlights
Oral Smallpox Drug in Popular Science
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated February 7, 2003
An oral smallpox drug developed by a VA-led team was selected by Popular Science Magazine as one of the five most promising developments in medical technology for 2002. The drug, hexadecyloxpropyl-cidofovir (HDP-CDV), stops the spread of smallpox and other poxvirus-caused illnesses in mice. It is undergoing additional testing in animals, and will need to be tested in human clinical trials before it is made available for use. One advantage of the drug is that it can be administered orally, rather than intravenously, which would make it valuable in a bioterrorist attack.
The development effort was led by Dr. Karl Hostetler and Dr. James Beadle of the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California, San Diego, in collaboration with scientists at the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease and the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
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