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Novichok: the deadly story behind the nerve agent

Nerve agents, including certain Novichoks, are part of the family of organophosphate compounds – albeit at the most toxic end of the spectrum. They all operate in a similar way by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE). The enzyme can be found in various locations in the body, but it’s at the junctions between nerves and muscles where its activity is most critical. AChE regulates the message from nerve to muscle by inactivating the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine binds to receptors at the neuromuscular junction, instructing the muscle to contract. The enzyme then removes this messenger, splits it in two, and with its removal from the receptor the muscle relaxes.…

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 Alexei Navalny Was Killed With Novichok Nerve Agent, Widow Concludes

The widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week, has surmised that the government there is engaged in a coverup to hide evidence of his likely exposure to Novichok, a nerve agent that has become a signature assassination technique for President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. “They are now hiding his body, not showing it to his family, not giving it to them, but lying and waiting pitifully for the traces of Putin’s another Novichok to disappear,”...

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Everything You Need To Know About Novichok

Novichok is a nerve agent developed at the GosNIIOKHT state chemical-research institute in Russia. It belongs to a broad class of compounds called cholinesterase inhibitors, which are used in a wide range of medicines and poisons. There are several variants of Novichok, some of which are believed to have been adapted for military use and were specifically designed to escape detection by international inspectors.

Novichok: An Emerging Nerve Agent Threat

“A” series or Novichok agents are binary nerve agents. This means two safer chemicals are mixed to make the final active agent. This is common when chemical weapons are placed in munitions. The delivery device will contain two different chemicals which combine in flight.

What do we currently know about Novichoks? The state of the art

Novichok is the name given to the group of nerve agents created stealthily in the later phases of the Cold War by the Soviet Union. Constitute the fourth generation of chemical warfare agents; like other nerve agents, they are organophosphorus compounds designed to be incurable and undetectable. The mechanism of action is based on the non-competitive and irreversible inhibition of acetylcholinesterase. Due to their enormous toxicity, Novichoks have become attractive targets for terrorists.

What is Novichok? A neurotoxicologist explains

Several factors make Novichok especially sinister. First, the chemicals are reported by Soviet chemists to be the most potent agents ever made, with potency between 6-10 times higher than VX, the chemical used to kill the half brother of Kim Jong Un; or sarin, the prototypical poisonous nerve gas the Iraqi government allegedly used in 1989, and which was used by Syria last April. Thus extremely low doses, powder or liquid, the exact concentration of which remains unknown, are lethal.

A complete, evidence-based review on novichok poisoning based on epidemiological aspects and clinical management

Nerve agents are categorized as the G agents [GA (Tabun), GB (Sarin), GD (Soman), GF (Cyclosarin)], the V agents (VX, methylphosphonothioic acid) and novel agents (A-series compounds) (Hulse et al., 2019). Which are less known, and called “Novichok”; an equivalent word for “newcomer” in Russian (Hulse et al., 2019; Holmgaard and Nielsen, 2009).

A-agents, misleadingly known as “Novichoks”: a narrative review

“Novichok” refers to a new group of nerve agents called the A-series agents. Their existence came to light in 2018 after incidents in the UK and again in 2020 in Russia. They are unique organophosphorus-based compounds developed during the Cold War in a program called Foliant in the USSR. This review is based on original chemical entities from Mirzayanov's memoirs published in 2008.

Chemical warfare agent NOVICHOK - mini-review of available data

The Cold War period is characterized by the infighting between the Western countries and the USSR in diverse areas. One of such fields was development of the weapons of mass destruction. Within various programs on both sides, a wide scale of different agents have been developed. However, information about some of them are still protected under the designation “top secret”. Notwithstanding, in history several cases are known when such information beheld the daylight. One of such cases was the program FOLIANT and NOVICHOK. Both programs were developed by the USSR as a reaction to English/American invention of VX agent. If at least a part of available information is truthful, we can allege that these compounds belong among the most toxic synthetic agents ever.

How German military scientists likely identified the nerve agent used to attack Alexei Navalny

Insights gleaned from 2018 poisoning of a Russian spy in the United Kingdom may have helped finger a Novichok.

Navalny 'poisoned': What are Novichok agents and what do they do?

The name Novichok means "newcomer" in Russian, and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. They were known as fourth-generation chemical weapons and were developed under a Soviet programme codenamed Foliant. Novichok's existence was revealed by chemist Dr Vil Mirzayanov in the 1990s, via Russian media. He later defected to the US, where he published the chemical formula in his book, State Secrets.

Novichok agents: a historical, current, and toxicological perspective

The Novichok, or “newcomer” class of nerve agents are lesser characterized, weaponized organophosphate agents. The use of known Novichok agents in warfare is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997. Novichok agents are considered more potent than VX gas and can be applied in unitary and binary forms. Like other nerve agents, Novichok agents irreversibly bind acetylcholinesterase and produce a cholinergic toxidrome. Uniquely, these agents are thought to also target neurons in the peripheral nervous system. Delayed treatment or massive exposure may therefore cause a debilitating neuropathy.

Novichok nerve agents – what are they?

Like other nerve agents, they are organophosphate compounds, but the chemicals used to make novichoks, and their final structures, are considered classified in the UK, the US and other countries. By making the novichoks in secret, from benign chemicals normally used for insecticides and the like, the Soviet Union aimed to manufacture them without interference. “Much less is known about the novichoks than the other nerve agents,” said Alastair Hay, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Leeds who investigated the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988. “They are not widely used at all.”

What Is Novichok, the Poisoning Agent Used on Russia’s Alexei Navalny?

It is a deadly nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union and then Russia as a more potent and harder-to-detect alternative to VX and soman. Its existence was first revealed in the early 1990s by a dissident scientist as Moscow prepared to enter the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention to end the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons.

What We Do (and Don't) Know About Novichok Agents

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Print Current Issue THIS ARTICLE FROM ISSUE MAY-JUNE 2018 VOLUME 106, NUMBER 3 PAGE 139 DOI: 10.1511/2018.106.3.139 UNAVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE VIEW ISSUE Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned on March 4. On March 13, the British government revealed that it is believed that a type of Novichok agent was the chemical culprit behind the attempted murder. Novichok agents are organophosphate nerve agents. Novichok loosely translates to newcomer in Russian. Chemically, they are similar to the V series of organophosphate agents, which includes VX, and the G series, which includes sarin. What we know about Novichok agents is largely as a result of information divulged by a former Russian chemical weapons scientist, Vil Mirzayanov. In 1992, Mirzayanov, along with his colleague Lev Fedorov, published an article in a Russian newspaper detailing aspects of Russia’s development of nerve agents, despite the imminent signing of the Chemical Weapons Treaty. Mirzayanov and Fedorov claimed that the Novichok agents were developed from the 1970s up to the early 1990s.