In This Issue

News

The theme of this year's National VA Research Week, to be held May 2 - 6, is "Discovery and Collaboration for Exceptional Health Care." ...

Career milestones

Former bench scientist, now with VA's Office of Research and Development, honored by Urban League

Tshaka Cunningham, PhD, was honored by the Northern Virginia Urban League for his accomplishments in science and his role in the community. ...

Magnuson Award given to stroke rehab innovator

In the last decade, a paradigm shift in the field of stroke rehabilitation and treatment has occurred, and one of the major forces behind the shift is Richard Macko, MD, director of the Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence at the VA Maryland Health Care System...

New directions

Beyond randomized clinical trials: 'point-of-care' studies

A VA and Stanford University team is exploring an emerging approach to clinical trials that experts say will cost less and be easier to translate into practice...

New Research

NFL grant expands brain-injury research

The circumstances behind traumatic brain injuries in athletes and combat troops may be light years apart, but in biological terms, they share certain features. So a new grant from the National Football League to scientists with VA and University of California, San Diego, may lead to a better understanding of the injury in both populations...

Impact on Care

Turning findings into action: A snapshot of QUERI

David Atkins, MD, MPH, director of VA's Quality Enhancement Research Initiative, was interviewed by the Association of American Medical Colleges about the program and its role in improving Veterans' health care...

Joint ventures

VA-DoD collaboration guidebook now available

Veterans Affairs and Defense researchers have produced a new 56-page guidebook to spur more collaboration between the agencies on clinical health research...

Journal Scan

Discovery could speed progress on titanium implants

Thomas Webster, PhD, a nanoscientist with the Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine at Brown University and the Providence VA Medical Center, believes his team has discovered a way around the obstacle of preventing bacteria from entering the body...

Chronic PTSD linked to hippocampus size

In a study by researchers with VA and the University of California, San Francisco, the hippocampus, a brain area involved in memory and stress, was about six percent smaller on average in Veterans with ongoing posttraumatic stress disorder...

Rapid HIV test boosts screening rate for at-risk Veterans

In a study of 65 Veterans with mental health and substance abuse issues who were living in assisted-living facilities in the community, VA researchers in Philadelphia found that a quick, oral-fluid test for HIV...