MISSION

  
Discover and develop globally impactful medical countermeasures for military-relevant infectious diseases and operational environment stressors.


 

VISION
The DOD’s premier, therapeutic area-agnostic, drug discovery and development competency providing high-throughput biological test systems; medicinal, synthetic, and analytical chemistry; and clinical pharmacology to develop innovative preventive and treatment therapies for preserving total force Readiness and Lethality.


 
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WRAIR Experimental Therapeutics Branch

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research


 
 
   
     
 

THE ET PARADIGM:

 

 

The Experimental Therapeutics Branch (ET) applies drug discovery and development test systems and expertise to generate the preclinical data necessary to de-risk decisions for pharmaceutical industry and other external partners to collaborate with the DOD on developing new medical countermeasures for military-specific clinical indications.

 

 

 

 

  

   
 

 

  
 

Highlights:

  
 

  • Competency: Over 75 years of experience developing drugs for military-relevant indications using dynamic drug development capabilities

  • Product Development: Achieved U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of 9 malaria drugs, 1 radioprotectant therapy, 2 rapid diagnostic tests, and more than 65 investigational new drug applications   

  • Assets: Chemical Repository that houses over 800K unique chemicals

  • Graduate Medical Education Program: Home to the Army Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship

  • Teamwork: Collaborations driven across academia, industry, not-for-profit organizations, and government

  
  
 


 



 

Discovery
Biologists develop, optimize, and execute validated high-throughput, cell-based assays and animal models to discover new drug candidates and evaluate their safety, pharmacological properties, and efficacy. These data serve as the foundation for Investigational New Drug applications to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

 
   

Development
Chemists design, synthesize, and refine drug candidates, and make decisions about advancing new drug classes through the pre-clinical development process. Chemistry core competencies can support any small molecule drug effort in partnership with other government, academic, and industry product development.

 
       

Clinical Pharmacology

Active-Duty Military Clinical Pharmacologists compare clinical practice guidelines to the current and future military relevant medical threats to define gaps and harmonize Discovery and Development data while advancing effective clinical trials to achieve solutions. The Army Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship is nested within ET and trains the next generation of medical product developers in this critical skillset.

 
   

Environmental Health
Environmental health biologists develop products that reduce risks of illness or injury to service members from toxic exposures in operational environments using omics and bioinformatics to identify and mitigate the effects of exposures. This competency also accelerates medical countermeasure discovery and development across therapeutic areas using zebrafish models to evaluate safety and efficacy of candidate molecules.