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Navaln felt ill after drinking tea at Tomsk airport on August 20. He was in a coma and was airlifted to the Charite Clinic in Berlin two days later; In a statement yesterday, hospital officials said he had awakened from a coma and was “responding to verbal stimuli.” Navalno supporters accused Russian authorities of poisoning the tea, a reminder that Russia’s critics silenced the toxic substance that does not appear to have been broken.
The Novichok A234 was chosen to silence a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury, UK, in March 2018. In a refusal operation, two Russian intelligence officers attempted to assassinate his daughter, Julia, in an attempt to kill to Skripali, leaving a clear mark on the evidence. The targets of the operation survived, but the woman who later found the perfume bottle containing the poison died.
The Salisbury scandal pulled beginner in the daylight. After Russian chemists shared some details about these highly toxic NPMs in 1992 (there are at least seven of them), the US and allied authorities ended the open discussions; newbies they were classified. The negligent use of A234 in the UK sparked a public backlash. In October 2019, participants in the Chemical Weapons Convention agreed to be included newbies to the list of toxic substances of the Treaty and, therefore, fall within the scope of the Convention. This provided the opportunity to investigate these “fourth generation” MNPs, as well as to develop antidotes and treatments.
Such diplomatic impulses did not deter the unknown invaders from Navalna. In an effort by Berlin doctors to save him, researchers at the Bundeswehr Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology in Munich have identified the mysterious cause of the symptoms.
They knew clear objectives. Like other MNPs, newbies binds to acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at synapses. Common Poisoning beginner symptoms include dizziness, shortness of breath, seizures; without medical intervention, the victims develop a coma. The membranes of red blood cells contain AChE, which can be used to detect the formation of beginner and an AChE conjugate that scientists can detect on a mass spectrometer, says Palmer Taylor, a pharmacologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Noviocok It can also bind to albumin, the most abundant protein in the blood. Conjugates of nerve paralyzing substances with blood serum albumin “are very useful markers” that can be detected at least a couple of weeks after poisoning, says Stefano Costanzi, chemist and non-proliferation analyst at American University in Washington, DC
A third candidate is a conjugate with butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), an enzyme that assembles NPM molecules in the blood. It would be easy to use an anti-BChE antibody that binds to the conjugate and says the protein. Excellent beginner part of the molecule would remain attached to one of the fragments and would be easily detected by mass spectrometry, says Oksana Lockridge, a toxicologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
“I have no doubt that the Bundeswehr group has used this method,” he says. “It just came to our knowledge then beginner the ratio is much higher than for any other nerve paralyzing substance, “says ZCS Radićius, a UCSD chemist. Upon detection of such a conjugate, beginner it would be identified as “100% safe,” says Lockridge, who is developing BChE as a preventative measure against NPM.
The Salisbury sample probably provided important information about newbies. The United States government now “knows much more about beginner toxicity, detection and general properties ”, says toxicologist Kamil Kuča from the Hradec Králové University in the Czech Republic. “They were able to share their results with ‘friends,’ Germany says. And the work of chemical detectives at the US Defense Laboratory researchers in Porton Downe has been able to accelerate the analysis of the Munich laboratory” by providing a set of appropriate protocols, “says Radić.
Also, the main component itself can be detected directly beginner Navalno Corps. It’s not hard to add that they build up in lipids, Radicius says. In an article published earlier this year in Heliyon magazine, the Center for Chemical and Biological Weapons of the US Army Center for Chemical Capabilities and Development showed that three beginner The components are much more stable than other NPMs, and the strongest, A234, is approximately 1000 times more stable than sarin.
This stability may determine why these few are known beginner victims respond so badly to treatment: beginner stores in fat cells can remain for more than a week. Another bleak beginner The characteristic is its lethal attachment to AChE: it connects and blocks not one active center, like other NPMs, but two. “Новичиоко the structure is unique. It’s really different from other nerve paralyzing substances, ”says Radićius. As a result, oximes, antidotes that separate NPM from AChE and reactivate the enzyme earlier beginner it can be significantly less effective than against classical substances of this type such as zarin. “There is no classified information on reactivation beginner victims, ”says Radicius. One researcher says that pralidoxime, an antidote used by US soldiers at risk of exposure to NPM, has helped Salisbury victims, but does not work by reactivating AChE.
Who organized the attack on Navalna, the incident and the news of newbies resilience increases anxiety about the threat it poses. And while most NPMs are liquid, some are newbiesthey are stable and like an ultrafine powder. “They are much easier to hide and store than classic nerve paralyzing substances,” says Radić, noting that it is easier for them to find themselves on the black market.
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