The Center for Military Medicine Research

Pitt’s Center for Military Medicine Research utilizes a cross-disciplinary approach to support the medical research interests of the U.S. departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The center’s director, Dr. Ron Poropatich, spent 30 years working as a pulmonary and critical care physician in the U.S. Army before retiring at the rank of colonel in 2012. Today, he holds the title of professor of medicine in Pitt’s Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine.

Among the center’s recent innovations: TRAuma Care In a Rucksack (TRACIR), a fully autonomous medical backpack—now under development for the U.S. Army—that can deliver robotically controlled are to injured soldiers in remote and austere environments.

Poropatich notes that the TRACIR is poised for use far beyond the active combat zone. It could “be deployed by drone to hikers or mountain climbers injured in the wilderness or expand trauma care capabilities in rural health clinics or be used by aid workers responding to natural disasters,” he has said of the technology.