Expanding Horizons in Battlefield Injury and Regenerative Medicine

A United States national project will be dedicated to use the science of regenerative medicine to develop new treatments for wounded soldiers.

A new research institute, to be called the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), will be dedicated to repairing battlefield injuries through the use of regenerative medicine, a field of medical science that takes advantage of the body's natural healing powers to restore or replace damaged tissue and organs. The new program, funded by the U.S. federal government, will also benefit the civilian population with burns or severe trauma due to illness or injury. AFIRM will be staffed by members of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (Fort Sam Houston, TX, USA) and researchers of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt, PA, USA) and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (Winston-Salem, NC, USA). Another team will be led by Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ, USA) and the Cleveland Clinic (OH, USA).

"Our goal is to use our position as the international leader in developing restorative therapies for battlefield trauma to improve the outcomes for our wounded,” said designated co-director of AFIRM Alan J. Russell, Ph.D., director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Pitt and founding president of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). "Our ability to provide these treatments is in part due to our team's long experience in this field and our broad pipeline of technologies.”

AFIRM will have multiple research teams working in several fields, including burn repair, wound healing without scarring, craniofacial reconstruction, limb reconstruction, regeneration or transplantation, and compartment syndrome - a condition related to inflammation after surgery or injury that can lead to increased pressure, impaired blood flow, nerve damage, and muscle death.

"For the first time in the history of regenerative medicine, we have the opportunity to bring transformational technologies to wounded soldiers, and to do so in partnership with the armed services,” said designated co-director of AFIRM Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "This field of science has the potential to significantly impact our ability to successfully treat major trauma.”

Government sponsors of AFIRM are the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). In addition to the announced government funding, the universities involved and the other partners will provide more than US$180 million from academic institutions, industry and state and federal agencies for the projects – for more than $250 million available for regeneration research.


Related Links:
U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research
University of Pittsburgh
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center