News From the Cause
Clinical trials seek to improve warriors' burn care (ARMY NEWS
March 22, 2011
FORT DETRICK, Md., March 18, 2011 -- New hope is on the horizon for wounded warriors suffering debilitating burns as the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine and its partners at leading medical research centers launch three promising clinical trials.
Burns are among the most painful and debilitating battlefield wounds and often turn deadly if infection sets in. In an effort to speed up the development of revolutionary new treatments for burns and other common battlefield injuries, the Defense Department launched AFIRM in 2008.
Just three years into the program, AFIRM is seeing big signs of success as it helps advance technologies that use laboratory-grown tissues and biosynthetically developed compounds to treat injuries and illnesses. The ultimate aim of regenerative medicine is to enable patients' bodies to re-grow bones, skin and tissues -- even whole organs and limbs.
Ten clinical trials already are under way or about to start in five areas specific to wounded warrior care. Three focus on burn repair.
The idea, explained AFIRM Director Terry Irgens, is to push the envelope in exploring technologies that, while promising, are simply too expensive for the private sector to pursue alone.
With funding from the Army Medical Research and Material Command, as well as the Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs and other public and private entities, AFIRM is helping advance technologies over the gap referred to as the "valley of death."
"It's where the existing technology ends, and there is a gap and nobody has the funding to get it to the next step," Irgens said.
Two research consortia, made up of some of the best and brightest minds from 31 universities, are partnering with the U.S. Army Institute for Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to help bridge that gap.
The goal is to get an industry partner to step in and pick up where they leave off, Irgens said. "Once you get some good, promising data, that's when the commercial companies will come forward," he said.
One of the new clinical trials, now entering its second phase, involves spraying a patient's own healthy cells onto the burned area. Click here to view more
