DARPA searches for instant repair of soldiers' injuries

The age of bionic soldiers and first responders nears. The military wants soldiers who can withstand anything — even the worst and most debilitating wartime injuries. Now DARPA is trying to make traumatic injuries more like minor scrapes, patched up to be good as new — or better.

Katie Drummond writes that DARPA has been working on superhuman soldiers for years. The agency researchers have toyed with cellular mitochondria and pondered putting soldiers on the Atkins diet. In 2006 DARPA launched an ambitious Restorative Injury Repair program, which aims to “fully repair” body parts damaged by traumatic injury.

Drummond writes that earlier this year, researchers funded by that program generated new human muscle that could replace damaged tissue. Now DARPA is asking for a device that can use adult stem cells for a regenerative free-for-all, producing whatever needed to repair injured body parts, including nerves, bone, and skin. Already, research has proven that adult stem cells can act the same way embryonic ones do — differentiating into the highly-specified cells that form complex body parts.

According to DARPA’s solicitation, 85 percent of recent wartime injuries involved damage to the extremities and facial regions. That often means multiple surgeries, rehab, and permanent disability for vets. The agency hopes to eliminate the injuries, and their long-term consequences, with a system that can reproduce in vitro tissues with the same structural and mechanical properties of the real stuff — and maybe make better versions: DARPA wants implanted results that will “replace, restore or improve tissue/organ function.”

Phase II of the project will see animal testing of the most promising systems. DARPA foresees eventual use by military and civilian populations.