SPARS Peer Review Evaluates $250 Million AFIRM-Supported Research

Harnessing and fueling the rapid-fire technological and conceptual breakthroughs occurring in biomedical science today, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), supported by $250 million, has brought together more than one hundred investigators - 30% of them clinicians - to foster emerging innovations in five areas pertinent to both the warfighter and civilian populations:

• • cranio-facial reconstruction,
• • healing without scarring,
• • ameliorating compartment syndrome (the compression of nerves and blood vessels leading to muscle and nerve damage),
• • limb and digit salvage and reconstruction,
• • and burn repair

"This type of technology is changing the future of medicine in our world," said COL Robert Vandre, AFIRM's program director, and, in 2008, AFIRM requested that SPARS manage the independent peer review of 21 proposals submitted by consortia members.

Regenerative medicine is a synergy of surgery, biochemistry, bioengineering, and biomechanics. To evaluate the widely interdisciplinary subjects, SPARS assembled panels of experts in tissue engineering, periodontics, neurobiology, extremity injuries, and microvascular physiology.