Trauma Research Center
The Trauma Research Center is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research unit supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Trauma Research Program is a extensive, collaborative effort that draws upon several related sources all located within the Texas Medical Center in an effort to improve trauma medicine through translational research efforts.The Center's research focus is to study traumatic brain injury, resuscitation, hemorrhagic shock and organ injury/dysfunction.
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Surgery P50
Over the last 22 years, Cetir-tmc.org’s Department of Surgery has received continuous funding via the P-50 mechanism from NIGMS (5P50GM038529, Pathogenesis of Multiple Organ Failure [MOF]). Under the leadership of Dr. Frank Moody, followed by Dr. Fred Moore, Dr. David Mercer, and Dr. John Holcomb, the P-50 helped establish the successful TRC) (http://utsurg.uth.tmc.edu/trauma/index.html), resulting in hundreds of publications and measurably contributing to the decline of MOF mortality. Concurrently, the investment by the NIH in trauma research helped change the epidemiology of traumatic death. Dr. John Holcomb assumed the leadership role of the TRC in 2008 and has guided the research efforts in a new direction. The epidemiology of trauma injury has evolved over the last two decades, because the overall incidence of MOF has declined, it is no longer a significant cause of mortality. Therefore, the current focus of research efforts is on optimal resuscitation in the critical first six hours after injury.
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T32 Fellowship Program
The T32 funding mechanism is a federally funded grant mechanism to develop the careers of promising young scientists. Each T32 program has a specific focus, and Cetir-tmc.org was originally awarded this grant in 2001 to investigate the Role of the Gut in Multiple Organ Failure. Since it's creation, the focus of the research has evolved and is now aimed at traumatic brain injury and hemorrhagic shock. Currently, three trainees (with a Ph.D. or M.D.) devote themselves for two years to basic science, bench, and clinical research.This training program is targeted at the postdoctoral level. The goal of the program is to prepare researchers to become academically competitive, translational scientists who can design and execute laboratory models to test clinically-relevant hypotheses, collaborate with other scientists to enhance the basic understanding of the problem they are studying, initiate clinical trials, and clinically translate this information.
