In the not too distant future, the way injuries are treated, on the battlefield and here at home, might take on a drastically different face. The Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics (FRRCBE) and the Computational Intelligence and Machine Vision Laboratory at ODU recently received word that the Department of Defense has allocated $1.6 million dollars from its 2009 budget to further research in Bioelectrics.
     The FRRCBE was developed by ODU and Eastern Virginia Medical School as a research initiative to expand on the field of bioelectrics, drew immediate attention from the Air Force, who awarded a $5 million grant to the Center for a multi-university research initiative.
     In a conference call with Dr. Karl H. Schoenbach, Dr. Richard Heller and Dr. Vijayan Asari, Heller clarified the scope of the research, said the funds were provided by the Department of Defense due to the interest in the application of bioelectrics. The Department of Defense is particularly interested in the ultrashort pulse technology to assist in removing infection from injuries, closely monitoring and assisting in the recovery process.
     When asked how this research compared to other devices that are said to stimulate muscle growth and healing through the use of electrical pulses, Heller said, “The pulses are fired in nano-second to milli-second bursts. We are using electrical fields in a different way to stimulate the body’s natural healing process at a cellular level.”
     Heller, a recent addition to the center’s research staff, after being asked if the funding would limit the scope or availability of the research and any of its findings, said that because the money had come from a federal source, the research and subsequent accomplishments would be readily available to the public as well as other bodies of research. “If anything, the funding from the federal government assures that other researchers and medical facilities will have prompt access to what we discover here,” Heller said.

     Vijayan Asari, director of the Computational Intelligence and Machine Vision Laboratory, is working hand in hand with Heller and Schoenbach, providing the Vision Lab’s expertise in visual identification and tracking.
     “The same technology we have developed to track people, monitor behaviors, and record their actions can be used to locate wounds in the body,” Asari said.
     Asari went on to point out how this research could yield devices that could see injuries not normally perceptible to the human eye, such as hemorrhages and internal bleeding, much faster and with greater accuracy.
     Schoenbach, director of the FRRCBE, took a moment at the end of the conference call to reiterate the importance of this research and to share his thoughts on the potential of these projects.
     “It will depend on the intended use, and safety must be considered,” he said. “This research will not be immediately available.”
     When asked what the potential was for these projects, Schoenbach said, “If it works as well as we believe it can, civilian applications will be planned out. These are powerful new technologies and we do not know if we will get the final results we want, but this is an exciting time in a new field of research.”

jpeters@maceandcrown.com