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Cohen Veterans Bioscience

   ADVANCING BRAIN HEALTH

Veterans Brain Health Progress Report

An Important Message From CEO & President Dr. Magali Haas

Quote from Dr. Magali HaasThis Veterans Day, Cohen Veterans Bioscience (CVB) pauses to give thanks to all active military and Veterans across America for their service to this country. While we rightly honor their sacrifices on November 11, CVB remains committed to ensuring that the challenges our Veterans face long after they take off the uniform are prioritized every day. This includes finding new solutions for the “invisible wounds of war”. Our nation’s Veterans continue to experience disproportionately high rates of suicide. CVB is committed to finding new solutions for individuals diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which are major risk factors for suicide. 

This Veterans Day, I’m delighted to share some of the progress we are making towards our goal of a next generation of personalized therapeutics for the brain trauma-related conditions that currently affect so many of our heroes. Despite the limitations of the pandemic, we are pleased to report that our scientific research and advocacy for our nation’s Veterans has continued, with 2020 proving to be a year of advancements for Veterans’ brain health.

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Listen to our video conversation with Veterans Advisory Council (VAC) Member Bob Harward, VADM (SEAL), U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Deputy Commander, Central Command, where he discusses what Veterans Day means to Veterans like him and the Veterans community, the need for more awareness about health issues of importance to Veterans and building bridges for more impact.
22 Jumps
22 Jumps: Raising Awareness of Traumatic Brain Injury as an Underlying Cause of Suicide

Tragically up to 22 American Veterans and service members die by suicide daily.

In an effort to bring hope and awareness to this crisis, Marine Veteran Infantryman, Scout Sniper and Survivor of a Family Suicide Tristan Wimmer developed a fundraiser 22 Jumps, with donations to be directed to Cohen Veterans Bioscience. This initiative centers on BASE jumping 22 times in honor of individuals who took their own lives too early and to advocate for effective solutions through research. We appreciate Tristan’s support and are delighted to share information about his fundraiser.

The first event, taking place on January 30-31, 2021, will be led by Tristan in Phoenix, Arizona. Fundraising is launching this Veterans Day and will culminate on January 31st at the close of the first jump of 2021. Please join Tristan and 22 Jumps spectators, sponsors and supporters in their efforts to raise $22,000 for TBI research. More 22 Jumps events are being planned for 2021 and information will be updated on our website.

Learn more about 22 Jumps and how to support it

Watch Marine Veteran Tristan Wimmer and Our Veterans Advisory Council Chair Frank Larkin discuss their leadership in this effort and partnership with CVB.

Brain Trauma Blueprint
Proceedings from the 2019 State of The Science Summit: Fostering Collaboration to Advance Solutions for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Panel discussion from State of the Science SummitCVB is driving the development a Brain Trauma Blueprint to guide a next generation of diagnostics and therapeutics across Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  In 2019, we hosted our second State of the Science Summit (SOSS) with over 100 thought leaders to foster consensus around potential paths to treatment for TBI. The goal was to define TBI beyond the typical classifications of mild, moderate or severe, in order to more clearly describe underlying disease mechanisms. The Summit focused on the chronic sequelae of TBI and aimed to identify current knowledge gaps in the etiology and mechanisms of persistent TBI symptoms.

The resulting recommendations create actionable research priorities to be prioritized across the research ecosystem and will be rolled out in the next few months. 

Learn more and read the proceedings

Accelerating The Path to Targeted Treatments for Veterans Suffering from PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder

Quote from Dr. Amit EtkinA newly published biomarker study, led by Stanford University professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Amit Etkin, MD, Ph.D. and supported with a financial grant from CVB, identified a potential diagnostic solution for treating heterogenous conditions such as PTSD and MDD. The study identified patient subtypes for both PTSD and MDD based on brain connectivity, independent of a clinical diagnosis. This discovery is significant as biomarker-based diagnostics are essential to shifting the diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as PTSD from a symptom-based to instead a biological approach that targets the effects of brain trauma at their molecular roots.

Learn more about this study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering

You can also read about this study in Forbes and Pharmafile.

Quote from Dr. Magali Haas
How Understanding Regulation of Fear May Lead to New Ways to Diagnose and Treat PTSD for Veterans

A new study funded by CVB and led by Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, chief scientific officer and chief of McLean Hospital’s Center of Excellence in Depression and Anxiety Disorders, and other investigators at McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital reveals that the expression of a gene called CREB in certain neurons may function as a switch to regulate feelings of fear and fear extinctions. The findings point to a potential new target for diagnosing, treating and preventing fear-related psychiatric illnesses. Learn more about "Genome-wide translational profiling of amygdala Crh-expressing neurons reveals role for CREB in fear extinction learning", published in Nature Communications on October 14, 2020.

Learn more from McLean Hospital

Read about this study in Neuroscience News

Quote from Dr. Magali Haas
New Collaboration Gives Veterans Access To Innovative Research Trials

Our continued partnership with National Association of Veterans Research Education Foundation (NAVREF) and the new VA Office of Research and Development (ORD)- led Partnered Research Program (PRP) aims to increase Veterans’ access to high-quality clinical trials, streamline the start-up of new, innovative trials, and give Veterans access to world-class health solutions.

Learn more about how this partnership resulted in accelerating a COVID-19 trial for Veterans in less than week.

Support Our Mission

Donate

Brain trauma can impact anyone and is an underlying cause of suicide today. We, at CVB, are advancing brain health for Veterans, service members and all civilians in partnership with our research collaborators. Together, we have the potential to help improve research and lives.

Join us in our efforts to reach our fundraising goal of $22,000 in honor of the 22 American Veterans and active duty service members who end their lives too early by suicide, daily.

100% of your donation will go towards research advancing solutions for the invisible wounds of war, and every dollar counts.

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Share this email and our social media posts to raise awareness for this important initiative with your family and friends. In addition to the 22 Jumps event in Phoenix, Tristan is planning other 22 Jumps events in 2021.

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