Kenneth Dretchen: Advising U.S. Government on H1N1 Outbreak

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Kenneth Dretchen, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center, is pretty pleased that he no longer has to carry the small black pager given to him several years ago by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). That official-looking device, active 24/7, beeped only when a chemical or biological attack was detected anywhere in the United States. It rather made Dretchen feel like he was a “first responder” for the entire nation, although it was his expert advice that was sought.

And his advice is being sought once again. While Dretchen is no longer working for the DHS, his new job with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is keeping him plenty busy as the nation and other parts of the world deal with the April 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 “swine” flu.

Dretchen reports directly to the HHS Secretary as one of 13 members of the National Biodefense Science Board. This group provides the Secretary – and thus the White House – with expert advice on public health emergency preparedness and response including the swine flu outbreak that triggered the U.S. to declare a health emergency.

“We advise the secretary on emerging infectious diseases and pandemic flu, chemical and biological weapons, use of vaccines and antiviral agents by response teams and stockpiling of those drugs – among other things,” says Dretchen.

When not sharing his expertise on the flu outbreak, Dretchen primarily focuses on building a device that can pick up the presence of pathogenic microbes. It’s this work that resulted in his new “part-time” job with the HHS, as he calls it.

Dretchen had first come to the notice of the Department of Homeland Security because he was part of a team that developed the antidote kit for chemical attacks now being worn by every U.S. military soldier.

Dretchen drily says that a lot can be accomplished in an 80 hour workweek.

Not only does he manage to fit in the administrative work necessary for a department head, but Dretchen also continues his very active research program within the Biomedical Graduate Research Organization (BGRO), home to much of the sponsored research being pursued at GUMC.

“What we need in this country are better devices to be able to detect the presence of threat agents; nothing like that exists at the moment,” he says. The device which Dretchen and his colleagues are working on, with funds from the Department of Defense through General Dynamics, keys in on the precise structure of bacteria and viruses deemed to be threatening.

“This is very hard work to do, because pathogenic microbes are very similar in their genetic structures to ones that aren’t, so that truly is like trying to pick that one needle from a haystack,” he says. “Furthermore, you can’t have false positives or negatives – the device can’t tell you a pandemic is a possibility when it isn’t, or say there is no threat when there really is.”

By Renee Twombly and Karen Mallet, GUMC Communications