The brand new helmet liner system prototype that Staff Wendy manufactured as a direct final result from PANTHER analysis. The liner system is designed to supply enhanced safety in opposition to traumatic mind harm. Picture courtesy of Staff Wendy

With new funding from the U.S. Workplace of Naval Analysis, an interdisciplinary initiative led by the College of Wisconsin–Madison will proceed to develop its analysis on concussions and different traumatic mind accidents.

Christian Franck, a professor of mechanical engineering at UW–Madison, began the initiative, referred to as PANTHER, in 2017. Underneath his management, it has grown to incorporate greater than 30 principal investigators nationwide, bringing collectively scientists from academia, business and authorities to review traumatic mind accidents by means of a variety of approaches.

Christian Franck

The U.S. Workplace of Naval Analysis has awarded PANTHER new grants totaling $15 million, permitting the researchers to advance their groundbreaking work in growing higher applied sciences for detecting and stopping traumatic mind accidents.

The initiative’s researchers work intently with business companions to quickly translate elementary scientific discoveries from the lab into next-generation shopper merchandise that may defend the mind from harm. Franck says thrilling developments are starting to emerge from these business partnerships.

For instance, helmet producer Staff Wendy has developed a prototype of a extra protecting helmet liner that’s knowledgeable by PANTHER analysis outcomes. And business companions Trek Bicycle and Milwaukee Instrument every have new helmets in growth that incorporate insights from PANTHER researchers.

“These grants actually permit us to deepen our collaboration with business companions and can result in much more advances that may allow safer helmets and protecting gear not just for our navy personnel but in addition for the general public,” Franck says. “I’m very excited by the potential of this initiative to supply higher options for stopping traumatic mind harm that everybody can entry.”

A part of the brand new funding will permit Staff Wendy to ascertain an infrastructure to enhance the ballistic efficiency of helmets for the navy. Researchers will work with Staff Wendy to develop higher ballistic requirements for helmets and create supplies that present enhanced safety in opposition to bullets.

“I’m particularly grateful for the efforts of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan from Wisconsin and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur from Ohio, who represents the congressional district the place Staff Wendy relies, in serving to to safe this new funding for the PANTHER program,” Franck says. “Their continued help is instrumental in making certain that this progressive program could make an actual distinction in bettering individuals’s lives.”

PANTHER can also be increasing its analysis into a brand new space — investigating the potential for mind harm as a result of publicity to pulsed microwaves. This analysis will take a look at whether or not directed power publicity might have brought on instances of “Havana Syndrome,” wherein U.S. personnel serving each at dwelling and overseas have skilled sudden onsets of concussion-like signs, akin to extreme complications, dizziness and nausea. UW–Madison electrical and laptop engineering school members Susan Hagness, Chu Ma and Daniel van der Weide have joined the initiative to steer analysis on this space.

“We would be the first to take a really rigorous and methodological scientific method to uncover any potential hyperlink between power exposures at completely different ranges and organic harm,” Franck says. “This analysis will reveal if there’s a scientific foundation for theories about the reason for Havana Syndrome.”

Further companions in PANTHER embrace researchers from Brown College, Robert Morris College, Colorado College of Mines, the College of Texas, Arlington, the College of Southern California, Iowa State College, UC Santa Barbara, Johns Hopkins College, Washington College in St. Louis, and Sandia Nationwide Laboratories.