SBIR-STTR Award

The goal is to identify essential nutrients that are safe to eat and improve survival from severe stress and injury. Once identified, such agents can be provided to soldiers, front line essential workers at higher risk of Covid-19 infection, and civilians prior to stressful elective surgery. In prior work, we identified several small naturally occurring inorganic ions that are sequestered in the body during the healthy state. When stress occurs these ions are mobilized and redistributed to provide relief from the stress by reducing the possibility of systemic uncontrolled inflammation that can be permanently debilitating or fatal. Furthermore, containment of inflammatory processes during stress has the added benefit of avoiding immune exhaustion and the subsequent hypoimmune state that often renders patients vulnerable to otherwise innocuous infectious agents during extended ICU stays during recovery. It is expected that this company will manufacture and sell products containing these agents for sale to both civilian and military personnel.

The goal of this work is to test the hypothesis that prophylactic administration of oral iodide reduces soldier and civilian mortality resulting from subsequent injury and infection while improving performance and readiness. In phase I we determined the blood levels of iodide in people that were subjected to Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) due to rapid transition from sea level to 17,000 feet of elevation in 1 day and found that those with higher levels of blood iodide were more resistant to AMS. We also found that these people had increased VO2 max and hemoglobin content. To test whether increase blood iodide can cause increased survival from stress we conducted a lethal mouse model of viral respiratory infection and found that prophylactic administration of iodide in the diet both increased blood iodide levels and dramatically improved survival. We also found that this same increase in blood levels of iodide improved outcome from a mouse model of trauma. Based on these findings we propose in Phase II to do the necessary work required to file an investigational new drug application (IND) with the FDA necessary to begin clinical studies testing oral sodium iodide as a drug to treat influenza and further observational studies in soldiers that could form the foundation for additional indications for the use of our oral sodium iodide product.