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Wake Forest Doctors Working To Heal Wounded Warriors

Almost 50,000 American servicemen and women have been wounded while serving our country in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of those, nearly 450 are from North Carolina.

At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), doctors are researching ways to help these wounded warriors.

"It's a very simple concept, we're trying to repair these massive muscle loss injures."explains Dr. George Christ, WFIRM.

Wake Forest joins 34 universities on a more than $300 million mission to change the way wounded soldiers are treated on the battlefield.

Dr. Christ is the lead researcher for a project on muscle reconstruction. When these muscles are implanted into the body, the chances of healing are much greater, actually 70 to 80% greater, but that's just the beginning.  

"This is something that maybe can be injected into the muscle, provide a water-based source of oxygen." Dr. Christ hopes an oxygen gel they're developing can be applied to open wounds on the battlefield and save limbs, and maybe even lives because it buys the soldier crucial time keeping tissue alive until surgery.  Read more.