Providence VA Builds Research Center

The Providence Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center has broken ground on a new, $6.1-million building that is slated to house researchers, professors, and clinicians from three partner organizations that provide cutting-edge care and innovations for veterans with amputations, traumatic brain injury (TBI), neurodegenerative diseases, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The researchers at the new VA Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine hail from Providence VA Medical Center, Rhode Island; Brown University, Providence; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston. The researchers, led by Hugh Herr, PhD, director of MIT's Biomechatronics Group, have already been working together in modular units on the Providence VA campus and elsewhere. The new center, expected to open next October, will facilitate collaboration among researchers by centralizing their research facilities.

U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin (D-RI) spoke at the center's groundbreaking ceremony, and was quoted in the Providence Journal as saying, "More than anything, a veteran who has suffered an injury or mental illness would like to return to a normal life.... This center gives our veterans the tools they need to make that transition as smooth as possible--whether by performing all their daily activities, returning to work, or running a road race."

Michael J. Kussman, MD, undersecretary for health for the Veterans Health Administration, said, "Already, the center's breakthrough research is revolutionizing amputee health care, dramatically improving limb function and changing the lives of America's heroes."

Kussman said of the nation's wounded veterans, "One minute, these valiant young soldiers stood tall and strong, at the height of physical ability. And the very next minutewith the flash of a sniper's gun, a firefight, or the explosion of an IED [improvised explosive device] they were facing catastrophic injuries.... They have made a tremendous sacrifice on America's behalf, as have their families. These courageous men and women deserve the very best in compassionate care and expert treatment that this nation, and our department, can offer."

The Department of Veterans Affairs will be financing the research center. According to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the 2009 fiscal-year federal budget for prosthetic research is $510 million, an increase of $105 million from the 2005 fiscal year. At the November 21 groundbreaking ceremony, Reed commented, "Today, we're celebrating the building of a center, but we're very lucky because the center will be populated by some of the most sophisticated and most productive scientists and researchers and physicians that we have anywhere in the world."