“Our research priorities are to expedite bioinformatic capabilities so we can annotate whole genomes. Current characterization methods are insufficient, but looking at the whole genome of an organism creates an extremely large data set and complex analysis. You want to detect these superbug and other genes quickly and cheaply, but how you read the spread of a growing line of bacteria is subjective. I would say the lack of available diagnostic methods for these organizations drove the need here.”

 

Veterinary Services

The institute conducts research in areas that might, at first glance, seem unusual for an organization dedicated to the health of deployed U.S. warfighters. One of those is the Veterinary Services Program, headed by Lt. Col. Kenneth E. Despain.

“Our mission, within the larger WRAIR mission, is to provide relevant, professional, and world-class veterinary support that allows the WRAIR and Naval Medical Research Center investigators success in developing and sustaining medical capabilities for the warfighter,” he explained. “We’ve had Veterinary Services almost from the start of WRAIR, although we were realigned in 2011, taking our existing veterinary pathology and lab animal medicine programs and merging them into one.

“We provide oversight to the animal care and use programs and make sure we comply with the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International. We take care of rats, mice, monkeys, any kind of research animal, providing housing, environmental enrichment, and husbandry. We consult with researchers on model use and development. For example, in most research, investigators are trying to mimic the human condition which, in many species, closely resembles humans.”

The vision for Veterinary Services is to maintain excellence in management and operations of research in WRAIR’s vivarium, where animals are housed and cared for, and support labs for antemortem and postmortem procedures.

The vision for Veterinary Services is to maintain excellence in management and operations of research in WRAIR’s vivarium, where animals are housed and cared for, and support labs for antemortem and postmortem procedures.

“One thing we do in the vivarium is mimic, as closely as possible, the animals’ natural environment, because sick or stressed animals are not useful for much research,” Despain said. “We also provide comprehensive pathology expertise for animal colony health and development, advanced testing, and evaluation of therapeutic countermeasures. We provide support for the animals rather than conducting research; however, within the services we provide lab animal medical health and enrichment, which can make a tremendous difference in the animals’ general level of contentment.

“That becomes more important as you go up the chain to larger animals. It gets really complicated with primates – giving a lot of interaction with the staff, games to play, group housing, and activities that satisfy the need to forage. Malaria is an area of emphasis for WRAIR and we use primates to determine how a drug or vaccine affects malaria and distributes within the body. Once proof of concept is demonstrated in an animal model, you are ready to pursue work that culminates in clinical trials with humans.”

As part of their recent realignment, Veterinary Services is divided into branches. The Resource Operations Branch limits access to WRAIR’s primates and research areas, as well as coordinating budgets and facilities. The Large Animal Branch deals with the procurement and care of primates, while the Small Animals Branch takes care of the different requirements of rodents and similar animals.

The Surgery Group has three surgical suites and a number of small animal surgery areas. It provides oversight of both and helps investigators develop surgical procedures, pain management, and both pre-op and post-op care. In the early stages of developing a surgical procedure, the group works with veterinarians to develop the anesthesia and surgical procedures.

The Veterinary Services Pathology Group looks at tissues and gives project investigators a microscopic analysis. They also do clinical pathology, look at blood samples and chemistry, have a bacteriology lab, and use scanning and electron microscopy for ultra-structural work on tissue. The group’s pathologists also formulate publication-quality data, prepare pictures for the investigator’s reports and presentations, do digital imaging of tumors or degraded bone, etc.

 

Conclusion

“Much of the research we do, especially basic science, starts with research in animals. We may have a condition we want to study, but can’t give it to humans. There are a couple of types we do with animals, such as pharmacokinetics, where we take a medicine we have developed and give it to an appropriate animal model and identify how long it takes to metabolize, how was it metabolized, what were the effects and so on,” Braverman said.

Tight budgets are having an impact on WRAIR’s research future.

“We’ve been trying to do our own ‘Pacific pivot’ for some time, trying to establish a small MRSN in AFRIMS and AFRICOM, which is important to future efforts. But we’re like everybody else – expected to do more for less, including travel restrictions.”

“We’ve been trying to do our own ‘Pacific pivot’ for some time, trying to establish a small MRSN in AFRIMS and AFRICOM, which is important to future efforts. But we’re like everybody else – expected to do more for less, including travel restrictions,” Lesho said, adding they nonetheless continue to pursue new areas of research. “Whole genome mapping and whole genome sequencing – clinical applications of those – which have been relative to basic research until now.

“The MRSN also was created for standardization, as a central reference lab. We are not a capacity-building effort. Our goal is to improve turnaround time. We have to focus on the military, which is our priority, but we definitely look more broadly because these infections don’t just affect warfighters. They affect newborns, people in nursing homes, etc.; these pathogens respect no bounds. But, for now, it’s just a matter of maintain and survive for our group.”

The ongoing efforts of many more branches, departments, and programs and their expanding research efforts and evolving missions are covered elsewhere in this publication. Each has a similar story to tell, of past efforts and successes, of future goals and challenges, each in some way reflecting Braverman’s own conclusions about WRAIR.

“My background is health care, and what I’ve learned here is there isn’t really a jump to one product that suddenly works for everything,” he said. “It is very much an incremental approach as we identify what works for some and, from there, try to make incremental improvements to those treatments, so that they work for more people or bring about better immune responses or are better tolerated, can be given more easily or have fewer side effects. Each of those is a separate series of research projects.”

This article first appeared in Walter Reed Army Institute of Research: 120 Years of Advances for Military and Public Health.