Army Veteran Helps Develop Substance to Save Limbs From Amputation

Health Uncategorized

For centuries, men have marched off to war, often for noble reasons and defense of their country and honor. Sadly, many never make it back to their families and loved ones. A number of those who do make it home often come home wounded and scarred, burned and broken, and even without one or more limbs.

Healing battlefield wounds can and is a difficult and emotional task. It takes a special breed of man or woman to take on the task of trying to mend our wounded troops. It’s also difficult for families and loved ones to care for their wounded heroes.

Many Americans may not realize it but many of the medical breakthroughs over the years have come from doctors trying to tend to our wounded soldiers and sailors. In one recent case, a medical breakthrough came from a soldier who served in Iraq and returned home with a burning desire to help his wounded comrades, as reported:

The latest proposed bone regenerative therapy is a paint-like substance that coats implants or other devices to promote bone regrowth. It’s designed for use in treating combat injuries and lower back pain, among other issues.

After about $9 million in grants from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, the substance, called AMP2, made by the company Theradaptive, is moving onto the next trial phase, a step ahead of testing on humans. Creator Luis Alvarez, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served a year in Iraq, said coating an implant is much better than the current, more dangerous therapy for bone regrowth.

“Without this product, the alternative is to use the type of protein that is liquid,” Alvarez said. “And you can imagine if you try to squirt a liquid into a gap or a defect in the bone, you have no way of controlling where it goes.”

This has caused bone regrowth in muscles and around the windpipe, which can compress a patient’s airway and nerves leading to the brain, he said.

After his tour of duty in Iraq, Alvarez went to graduate school with the burning desire to help his wounded comrades. He saw that a number of his fellow soldiers ended up having limbs amputated because they were unable to regrow the bone tissue. He earned a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering.

He commented:

“To me, it felt like a tragedy that that would be the reason why you would lose a limb. So when I got back from Iraq, I went back to grad school and the motivation there, in part, was to see if I could develop something or work on the problem of how do you induce the body to regenerate tissue in specific places and with a lot of control?” 

His discovery, AMP2 is composed of the same proteins that help promote the growth of bone and cartilage. It’s very sticky and adheres to whatever metal bolt or implement used that is implanted into the damaged broken bone. This has proven to be a huge asset in the effort to save the limbs of broken soldiers.

This discovery will not only help our wounded troops but could be used to help many civilians who sustain broken bones.

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