The need for effective treatments to contend with the damaging effects of ionizing radiation. In addition to accidents that might occur at sites utilizing radioactive materials, the Nation must prepare for the inevitability of a terrorist group obtaining radioactive material from the more than 100 countries that do not have adequate regulatory control or monitoring systems and detonating a ‘dirty bomb’. In the worst possible scenario, such a bomb or an improvised nuclear device would be detonated in an urban setting, inciting not only fear and panic, but an array of medical problems and deaths resulting from the initial blast, intense heat and subsequent radioactive fallout. Those affected would be in need of immediate medical treatment. Significant acute radiation injury in humans occurs at whole-body doses above 1 Gy, with symptoms getting progressively more severe as the level of radiation exposure increases. A dose range of 1 to 8 Gy is characterized by the loss of hematopoietic cell regenerative ability resulting in the “hematopoietic syndrome.” The numbers of red and white blood cells, neutrophils, platelets as well as others decline and susceptibility to potentially fatal infections increase. In the exposure range of,8 to 30 Gy, hematopoietic symptoms are present in addition to symptoms caused by significant breakdown of the gastrointestinal system which results in the “GI Syndrome.” Breakdown of the GI system results in translocation of GI bacteria to other organs, which ultimately results in sepsis and eventually death. Collectively, hematopoietic and GI syndromes are well recognized as the major subsyndromes of the acute radiation syndrome. At doses significantly above 8 Gy, significant damage is done to the nervous system that unconditionally results in rapid death. Because damage resulting from such extremely high radiation exposure has been deemed untreatable, the scientific community has focused its efforts on finding preventative and mitigating treatments for ARS. The search for treatments to counter potentially lethal radiation injury has been underway for the past several decades, resulting in multiple classes of radiation countermeasures. However, to date there have been no suitable countermeasures approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug administration for the treatment of ARS. Most recently, natural products have been investigated for prevention and therapy of human diseases because they are ‘generally recognized as safe’ and appropriate for Cycloheximide 66-81-9 medicinal purposes. Unlike their synthetic analogs, they are well tolerated and minimally toxic, even in the upper ranges of dietary intake. Such a vitamin that has been introduced to the research spotlight is vitamin E, which is well known for its antioxidant, neuroprotective, and anti-inflammatory properties. Vitamin E is a family of eight compounds that are collectively known as tocols. Tocols exist as four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. For patients who do not respond well to cytokine therapies, an allogeneic stemcell transplantation is a viable but clearly difficult therapeutic option.