The Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity issued a program announcement seeking solutions on how to help care for critically injured burn patients and how to further advance the state of medical sciences for treating burn injuries. The Department of Army program announcement released October 28th is looking for innovative approaches to transition medical technologies into deployable products to provide new standards of care to prevent burn injuries, treat casualties, and provide rehabilitation.
One of the four priority areas for FY 2012 listed in the program announcement specifies pursing device and drug development for Inhalation Lung Injuries. The combination of inhalation injury and burns results in mortality rates that far exceed the rate for burns alone. Research is needed to develop a device to provide “Extracorporeal Lung Support (ECL) or other therapeutic devices to treat severe inhalation injuries. The total funding allotted to develop the ECL device and for drug biologics is $2 million
ECL has been shown to allow the lungs to recover while respiratory demand is partially or fully met. DOD is looking for research efforts to design and or better develop an ECL or other device that weighs less, is reduced in size, and has less oxygen requirements as compared to hospital-based units. Research is also needed to produce a device that could improve outcomes in times of severe organ failure.
The prototype must be viable to use at level III/Combat Support Hospitals, during Enroute Care and can be used by a variety of personnel such as emergency physicians, ICU nurses, general surgeons, and intensivists that have little to no prior experience with such technologies.
In addition to an ECL device, there is still an urgent need for therapies that can be applied quickly post-injury to mitigate further damage and initiate healing. These therapies can be pharmacologic, biologic, or mechanical in nature.
The other priority areas in the program announcement are seeking to develop and assess the impact of checklists on standardizing burn care, perform multicenter studies of ICU-based rehabilitation outcomes based on evaluating physical and rehabilitation technologies and therapies, and develop appropriate therapies to manage scarring conditions.
The program announcement “Care for the Critically Injured Burn Patient” has a Pre-application submission deadline of December 2, 2011 and the application submission deadline is March 9, 2012. The total amount of funding available for the CCC/JPC 2012 initiative is $7.3 million with six awards anticipated.
Applications from investigators within the military services and other federal agencies are encouraged as are applications involving multidisciplinary collaborations among academia and industry.
TATRC is administering the application process for this funding opportunity and the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity will be negotiating all resulting awards.
For more information, go to www.grants.gov announcement (W81XWH-12-CCCJPC-CCIBP). For questions email tatrc@aibs.org or call TATRC Help Desk at 1-703-674-2500 extension 207.
