Advanced Platform Technology Center
APT Center of Excellence Renewed for Another 5 Years
The Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center of Excellence at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center has been renewed by for another 5 year grant cycle that will enable continued pursuit of original, high impact rehabilitation research through 2019. This is third renewal period for the program, which began in 2005. The APT Center is one of 17 designated Centers of Excellence in the Rehabilitation Research and Development (RR&D) Service of the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center of Excellence is dedicated to developing new rehabilitative or restorative technologies that serve the unmet needs of veterans with disabilities, and is committed to translating them into clinical practice,” says Ronald Triolo, Ph.D., Executive Director. “We are very pleased that our past successes have led to this renewal. It’s truly a testimony to the expertise and strength of our researchers and staff specialists at the VA, Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.”
The Center focuses on the practical medical needs of individuals disabled by sensorimotor dysfunction, cognitive deficits, or limb loss. Researchers work to create novel, cross-cutting assistive and technologies within a structured framework that facilitates regulatory compliance, dissemination within the rehabilitation community and commercialization by outside manufacturers.
R&D and translational programs focus on prosthetics and orthotics, wireless health monitoring and maintenance, neural interfaces and emerging enabling technologies. Center projects to date have concentrated primarily on developing new materials and microsystems for interfacing with the nervous system, repairing orthopaedic trauma and accelerating wound healing, replacing or restoring natural limb, sensory and organ system function, and both monitoring and promoting neurological, genito-urinary and vascular health.
“Over the past five years (2010-14), we have protected the intellectual property resulting from these efforts, and successfully brought many prototypes to the point of in vivo or first-in-man feasibility testing,” says Dr. Triolo.
Key objectives for the APT Center’s renewal period (2015-19) are to:
1) Translate original APT technologies from ongoing pre-clinical testing to human trials, including systems for wirelessly monitoring bladder pressure, efficiently individualizing wound care, and providing natural sensation to upper or lower limb amputees.
2) Perform definitive pre-clinical trials of newly developed therapeutic concepts, such as our miniature microfabricated artificial lung, biologically active ventricular shunt and dynamic intra cortical probes, and high density implantable connectors and neurostimulators, and prepare them for the translation to clinical use.
3) Increase productive interactions with commercial partners to license Center developments and facilitate conduct of pivotal clinical trials.
4) Extend APT engineering capabilities to include wireless communication, mobile computing and wearable sensor design, and integrate them into Center projects.
5) Expand capacity building activities with non-traditional training opportunities in the form of visiting early to mid-career sabbaticals and post-doctoral fellows who will add depth to the VA R&D enterprise, strengthen collaborations outside of Cleveland and overcome obstacles to clinical translation across disciplines.
About the APT Center: Established in 2005 as a collaboration between the LSCVAMC and CWRU, the APT Center focuses on applying the most recent advancements in microelectronics, material science, microfabrication, wireless communication and mechanical design to the pressing medical needs of disabled veterans, and translating them into viable clinical options. Investigators, project staff and support specialists associated with the Center concentrate their professional effort on translational research in the areas of: Prosthetics and Orthotics, Health Monitoring and Maintenance, Neural Interfacing, and Emerging Enabling Technologies. Clinician-researchers associated with the Center include some of the “Best Doctors in America” as named by Cleveland Magazine and Best Doctors, Inc. as well as multiple recipients of prestigious Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the NIH Director’s Innovation Award, and VA Career or Senior Career Research Scientist Awards. APT Center related activities have resulted in more than 60 invention disclosures and 15 patented or patent-pending concepts and prototypes that will serve the clinical needs of veterans with sensory, motor and cognitive deficits or limb loss. For additional information about the APT Center, please follow the link: http://www.aptcenter.research.va.gov/
