Experimental Therapeutics

Experimental Therapeutics (ET) is a drug discovery and development enterprise created to protect military personnel from death, disease, and injury and meet Army and DOD mission requirements. While its historical focus has been radioprotection and parasitic disease, ET applies its core competencies of medicinal, synthetic, and analytical chemistry as well as clinical pharmacology to all therapeutic areas within the Medical Research and Development Command's portfolio.

ET has a 75-year legacy of excellence in small molecule drug development, with over 65 Investigational New Drug (IND) applications submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA). ET is a world leader in malaria drug development—every malaria prophylaxis drug was either created by ET scientists or transited ET test systems on its way to FDA approval.  ET recently established a robust antibacterial product development effort mandated by the Presidential Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (CARB) initiative.


 

Research Areas

Drug Discovery

Wound Infection PhotoBiologists create, develop, and execute validated test systems to screen for new drug candidates and collect early safety and efficacy data. These data serve as the foundation for IND applications to the FDA.

Drug Development

Diarrheal Diseases PhotoChemists 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 efforts.

 

Clinical Pharmacology

Wound Infection Photo

Pharmacologists utilize data gathered in the Discovery and Development pipeline to design FDA-compliant clinical trials optimized to meet Soldier needs. The Army Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship is nested within ET and trains the next generation of medical product developers in this critical skillset. 


Visit the Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship's Page

Environmental Health Biology

Diarrheal Diseases PhotoEnvironmental 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 program also accelerates drug development using zebrafish embryos for rapid whole animal toxicity screening.