2022 Military Medical Photonics Program at Wellman Center for Photomedicine
Abstract
Wounded warriors face complex and challenging injuries that often occur far forward in austere battlefield settings. The military medical force must confront significant hemorrhage, penetrating wounds, blast injuries, large-area burns, and complex polytrauma from early roles of care with only the tools they carry all the way through en route care, field hospitals, and finally to definitive care. To save sight, limbs, and lives across all echelons of care, warfighters, medics, nurses, and physicians require innovative technologies and treatments specifically tailored for the unique challenges of the battlefield. The Military Medical Photonics Program (MMPP) at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine (WCP) has an outstanding track record of developing, validating, and translating new technologies and therapeutics to target specific military medical needs. The research proposal is divided into five different programs, each tailored to address key DOD needs and priorities, starting with technologies to prevent or mitigate injury and then stepping through multiple echelons of care to definitive treatment. The first program is focused on preventing soldier injury and includes projects seeking to prevent third-degree burns as well as impart resistances to hypoxia and ischemia. The second program is aimed at detecting and diagnosing the leading cause of death on the battlefield- hemorrhage. This program will focus on hemorrhage, shock, and downstream sequalae at early roles of care. The third program, far forward and en route care, seeks to create new innovations in battlefield and transport medicine-autonomous non-invasive monitoring of intracranial pressure; wearable, simple-to-use capnography devices to detect and monitor cardiopulmonary injury; and smart endotracheal tubes to ensure proper intubation even in complex and austere settings. The fourth program is a special group of projects targeting the detection and monitoring of sepsis, a condition that is anticipated to grow in importance due to peer and near-peer conflicts prolonged critical care, as well as the increasing threat of multi-drug resistant microbes. The final program, which is focused on definitive care, contains four projects targeted at major military medical needs for wounded warriors- prevention of neuroma, innovation in intraoperative assessment of peripheral nerves, preventing and treating keloids, and accelerated, light-enhanced bone regeneration.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 07, 2024
- Source ID
- FA95502310656
Entities
People
- R. Rox Anderson
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- United States Department of Defense