Walter Reed Army Institute System

The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research s Department of Behavioral Biology has developed a field-deployable version of a commercial Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) that has been widely used in sleep research. The software runs on handheld PDAs running the Palm Operating System (Palm OS). It is modeled after the simple reaction time task of Wilkinson and Houghton,57 as modified by Dinges and Powell.58 The Palm OS version incorporates additional stimulus, feedback, control, and data options developed by Dr. Thome. In laboratory studies, performance on the PDA task has been shown to be sensitive to time-on-task fatigue effects, sleep deprivation, and circadian variation.18 Field studies have utilized the PVT to measure the efficacy of caffeine gum as a sleep loss countermeasure. 

Calkins, M. D., Costello, M., Snow, C., and Robinson, T. D, Evaluation of Possible Tourniquet Systems for the far Forward Setting, US Defense Technical Information Center Report ADA 359664, Washington, D.C., Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 1999. 

C. Canfield, Biol. Systems, Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879, personal communication on compounds tested at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. 

The test system used by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research for screening compounds against leishmania infections in golden hamsters has been described, and data were presented on a variety of 6,and 3-aminoqulnollnes. The most active analog, 6, was more than TOO times as active as the meglumine antlmoniate (Glucanttme ) standard. 

The system, still operating to this date, is based on the approach used at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. The system was extensively enhanced to meet the specific needs of the Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories (MSDRL) and the Chemical Data Department (CDD) which is responsible for processing chemical structure information at Merck and Co., Inc. 

A recent study has compared the NCI-DCT system with the NIH-EPA Chemical Information System for the ability to perform substructure searches of large files of compounds (22). The Merck modification of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research substructure search system was also compared. This report should be referred to for a detailed analysis of these major substructure systems. Another system, prepared with a smaller computer and a smaller set of chemicals, has been developed by Jurs and colleagues 23). All of these systems can be readily used in substructural analysis studies. It would appear that the exact coding system used in such studies is not critical, but no definitive comparisons of these systems for SAR utility have been performed. 

CIDS stands for Chemical Information and Data System, a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and the Walter Reed Army Institute. 

The Division of Experimental Therapeutics, The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in conjunction with the Division of Biometrics has been engaged in the development and implementation of a large scale integrated chemical - biological data retrieval system for the support of the Army Medical Research and Development Command s drug development activities. 

The Chemical Information System, Division of Experimental Therapeutics, Walter Reed Army Institute... 

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