Washington State University’s College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences leads the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR) research program to help develop a better understanding of how radiation impacts the human body. The work done in the University’s labs are validate and improve safety for those who are working with radioactive materials.
USTUR is a program that monitors radiations effects on tissue so that we have a better idea on how to help protect people who work with plutonium and uranium. The program’s most vital tools is the the National Human Radiobiology Tissue Repository which houses 371 samples of tissue, organs, and bones from people who were exposed to radiation. These samples are collected when the individuals who have donated their bodies pass away; most of these donations were from people exposed to weapons-grade uranium at Department of Energy sights like Hanford (Wash.), Los Alamos (N.M.), or Rocky Flats (Colo.).
When a donor dies, their body is shipped to Richland, Wash. for the autopsy which is conducted by local forensic pathologist and the cadaver dissected with the help of USTUR personnel and WSU College of Nursing students. After the autopsy is complete, the samples are examined for radiation and bar coded so that it can be tracked – but without any personal identifies of the donors. It’s this information that helps the researchers to tune their mathematical models that determine safe radiation dosages.
These samples have also helped confirm that the safety regulations have been effective as new cadavers have been exposed to far less radiation than the older ones. The research that is conducted in this program is used around the world, and some of its scientist have participated in global research programs into long term impacts of radiation with other researchers from other universities.
Despite federal spending cuts, Washington State was able to work with the DoE to fund a new Radiological and Nuclear Security Leadership Academy. This academy will develop more people with the desperately needed expertise in radiochemistry, radiation protection, and radiological security.
USTUR was developed in 1968 as the National Plutonium Registry at the Hanford site and became the first program to research the long term impacts of working with radiation by using donated tissue from cadavers – and it still is the world’s only program for this purpose today. They’re able to do this because the program studies biokinetics and dosimetry of internally deposited actinides within these samples.
Washington State University took over the program in 1992 and has overseen it ever since with DoE grants.
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