The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) intends to issue a Program Announcement with Special Referral Considerations (PAR) in the fall of 2009 to provide support for exploratory and developmental translational research on therapeutics for reducing mortality and morbidity caused by acute exposures to chemical threat agents. Chemical threat agents are toxic chemicals that could be released by a deliberate terrorist attack against civilians, or by accident or natural disaster causing mass casualties. The NIH CounterACT Research Program supports basic, translational, and clinical research aimed at the discovery and/or identification of better therapeutic medical countermeasures against chemical threat agents, and facilitates their movement through the regulatory process (www.ninds.nih.gov/counteract).