Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine coming to Ft Detrick
Posted by Jim H on April 27, 2008
I ran across an article in Medical News Today from 18 Feb:
Disfigured Wounded US Soldiers To Get New Skin, Ears And Fingers
Article Date: 18 Apr 2008 - 9:00 PDT
The US Department of Defense has announced the launch of a five year collaborative program to make use of cutting edge medical technology to treat service members who are badly disfigured from injuries received while serving in wars.
Giving an example of the type of innovative treatment the new initiative would be developing, Lt Gen Eric Schoomaker, who is Surgeon General of the US Army told a press conference held at the Pentagon yesterday, Thursday 17th April, about one case of a badly burned Marine who was going to receive a new ear grown from his own stem cells.
Using the patient’s own stem cells to regenerate replacement skin, tissue and other body parts is an area currently being explored by the new Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) said Schoomaker.
AFIRM will come under the US Army’s leading medical research, development and acquisitions agency for related supplies, the US Army Medical Research and Material Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, which ultimately reports to Schoomaker in his capacity as Army Surgeon General.
I’m not clear from this article exactly how much of the research will occur at the Fort, but the possibilities are exciting to me, especially since I am working in the field. I knew that there was a bit of this research going on through DARPA funding, but I am glad that “RegMed 2.0″ has made it to the mainstream and Frederick is, once again, leading the pack.
For the initial five year period, AFIRM will be funded by an overall budget of around 250 million dollars, 80 of which will come from the Department of Defense, and the rest from organizations like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and matching funds from other public and private organizations.
