Basic and Clinical Toxicology of Organophosphorus Compounds

This book explains the chemistry of Organophosphorus compounds (OPs), their mechanism of toxicity and the history of OPs from their initial discovery to the development of new compounds such as Novichoks. It details the harmful effects to human health both as a result of acute and chronic OP exposure and the necessary clinical management of affected patients to reduce their toxic side effects. The book also explains the detrimental effect that OPs have had on the environment and the efforts being made to prevent this in the future. Finally, the book looks at the incidents where OPs have been used as chemical warfare agents. Basic and Clinical Toxicology of Organophosphorus Compounds aims to act as a comprehensive guide to all aspects of OPs and is a key resource for clinical toxicologists and related health professionals involved in the prevention, diagnosis and clinical management of OP patients, toxicologists and other scientists involved in research on OPs including regulatory issues and postgraduate students in Toxicology and related fields.

Mahdi Balali-Mood attended Tehran University, where he was awarded a B.Sc. First-Class Honor in Chemistry in 1963 and then an M.D. in 1970. After his medical military service and training in internal medicine and clinical toxicology, he was appointed an assistant professor in clinical toxicology and became the head of his newly established Poisoning Treatment Center (PTC) at Mashhad University in 1974. He was awarded a scholarship from the Ministry of Science of Iran and completed his Ph.D. in clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Edinburgh University Medical School (1978–1981). He continued at the school as a lecturer until 1982, when he decided to return to Mashhad to advance his established PTC.

            Dr. Balali-Mood was promoted to associate professor and then full professor of medicine and clinical toxicology at the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He has served as a clinical toxicology adviser to the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and the World Health Organization from 1989 to the present. He has also been a member of the IPCS Programme Advisory Committee since 2000.

            Dr. Balali-Mood was a founding member and the first president of the Iranian Society of Toxicology and was twice elected president of Irantox between 1989 and 2001. He has been a

member of the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences since its establishment in 1990. In collaboration with a group of internationally recognized medical toxicologists, he founded the Asia-Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology (in 1989) and served as the organization’s first vice president and then as its president for 8 years (1994–2001). He was elected as a permanent member of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in 1997. He was also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from 2004 to 2011. Additionally, he is the co-founder of the Medical Toxicology Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, where he has served as director since 1988. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Scientific Journal of Birjand University of Medical Sciences (since 2002) and an associate editor or editorial board member of numerous national and international medical journals.

Dr. Balali-Mood’s research areas include clinical toxicology of chemical warfare agents, organophosphorous pesticide poisonings, heavy metals, drug abuse and overdosage, epidemiology of poisonings, occupational and environmental toxicology, and natural toxins, including snake and spider venoms. He is the author or editor of 29 books and book chapters, 147 articles, and 289 short papers and abstracts. He is also the recipient of several national and international prizes for teaching, research, and medical care.

Mohammad Abdollahi earned a Pharm.D. in 1988 from the University of Tehran and later completed a Ph.D. in toxicology and pharmacology in 1994 at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. In 2001, Dr. Abdollahi completed his postdoctoral training in mechanistic toxicology at the University of Toronto’s School of Pharmacy. While in Toronto, he also contributed to a key meta-analysis study at the university’s School of Medicine. In 2002 he was given a full professorship at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. There he has chaired the Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology in the Faculty of Pharmacy since 2005.

Dr. Abdollahi has authored or coauthored more than 600 journal articles and 48 book chapters and has edited 11 books. He is the Editor-in-Chief of DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Journal of Medical Hypotheses and Ideas. Additionally, he has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (since 2012); as a member of the World Health Organization’s Guidelines Development Group for the Prevention of Lead Poisoning (since 2011); as a council member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (2013–2014); as Iran’s country correspondent to the World Library of Toxicology (since 2008); as a fellow of the Islamic-World Academy of Sciences (since 2007); on the Board of Directors of the Iran Chapter of the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (since 2013), of which is also a founding member; and on the Board of Directors of the Asian Council of Science Editors (since 2014).

Dr. Abdollahi is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious award of IAS-COMSTECH in the field of pharmacology and toxicology (2005). His main research interests are mechanistic and environmental toxicology, evidence-based medicine, and pharmacology.