VCURES Awarded Grant From Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to Develop New Metabolic Engineering Strategy For Shock:

The U.S. Government's agency charged with funding the initial stages of high-risk research has awarded VCURES a $150,000 pilot grant to explore a unique biochemical-metabolic strategy to enhance survival from hemorrhagic shock. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) recently created a research program in Metabolic Engineering for Cellular Stasis (http://www.darpa.mil/dso/textonly/thrust/sp/metabolic.html). The Metabolic Engineering Program seeks to (1) develop a technological basis for controlling metabolic demands in cells, tissues, and organisms of importance to national defense and (2) demonstrate the successful stabilization and recovery of cells and tissues from stress states representative of military operational conditions with specific focus on blood and blood products.

VCURES is developing a unique metabolic strategy aimed at reducing oxygen consumption after acute traumatic shock with the goal of reducing overall oxygen debt thus reducing the risk of multisystem organ failure and death. The study's investigators include:

R. Wayne Barbee, PhD: Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Physiology
Kevin R. Ward, M.D.: Co-Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Physiology
Robert Diegelmann, PhD: Professor of Biochemistry and Emergency Medicine
Melissa Evans, M.D.: Pediatric Critical Care Fellow
Sue Sreedhar, M.D.: Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Ehab M. Kodsi, MD, PhD: Department of Emergency Medicine
Rakesh Kukreja, PhD: Professor of Medicine, Physiology, and Emergency Medicine
Neri Cohen, MD, PhD: Assistant Professor of Surgery
Rao Ivautry, MD: Professor of Surgery, Physiology and Emergency Medicine
Bruce Spiess, MD: Professor of Anesthesiology

The work will have direct applications to all forms of shock in addition to other settings such as organ preservation and transplantation and cardiopulmonary bypass. For more information please contact Dr. Barbee at rwbarbee@hsc.vcu.edu.