A television is credited with saving Cpl. Isaias Hernandez's life in Iraq when an indirect artillery round aimed at his convoy hit in front of him and another GI. The other soldier was killed.

"I was carrying a TV for our convoy to use, and it was covering my vital organs, and the doctors said it acted like a shield," said Cpl. Hernandez, 24, a native of Bristol, Conn., now living in San Antonio. But the mortar blew the front muscle out of his right thigh.

He underwent several surgical procedures, including the transplant of part of a back muscle into his leg, but a hole remained in the tissue.

Then Cpl. Hernandez got a chance to undergo a new type of treatment developed by the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a joint effort of the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. He received an injection of extracellular matrix, or ECM, a naturally made cell scaffold that recruits stem cells to injury sites to regrow normal tissue rather than scars.

The result was a 12 percent to 15 percent increase in muscle mass and a similar increase in strength, said Dr. Stephen F. Badylak, deputy director of McGowan and the physician who helped to pioneer the use of this matrix. He developed the material that the team used on Cpl. Hernandez at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. He also was part of that team.

Now, thanks to a $6.3 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Technology Transition, which was announced Tuesday, as many as 80 people with massive tissue loss in major muscles will also undergo the procedure over the next two years.

"The military will supply at least half of the patients," Dr. Badylak said after a news conference at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Oakland.

Forty of the procedures will be done by the Pitt team; then the pioneers will teach the procedure to personnel at four other institutions, who will do the rest of them.

The $6.3 million is part of a total $12 million, two-year deal the McGowan Institute struck with the Office of Technology Transition.

Another $3.9 million will go toward a clinical trial that examines the effectiveness of a type of bone cement to spur new growth in craniofacial defects. The first phase of the study will enroll 10 military and 10 civilian patients. Made of calcium and phosphorus, the cement is absorbed by the body. This eliminates the need to implant metal plates, which can increase the risk of infection.

The remaining $1.8 million will examine the usefulness of injections of human fibroblasts, a type of connective tissue cell, into burn scars that have shrunk. The aim is for the fibroblasts to soften the skin and allow more freedom of movement in affected joints. Phase II clinical trials are expected to begin this year with 20 patients expected to receive the fibroblast treatment.

The important aspect of the contract is its two-year length, as the Defense Department office came to McGowan looking for speedy help for its soldiers. The goal for the three projects is to go from research to patient within that period, said Alan Russell, director of McGowan.

"We put thought into the specific things we could do. ... We took the technology that for Pittsburgh seemed most promising. Two years is incredibly aggressive," he said.

He noted that it takes roughly 20 years to take a drug from development through testing and federal approval to the marketplace and five to 10 years for tissue engineering projects.

"The goal is not to spend the money but to see how fast we can get the patients treated," Dr. Badylak said.

The Office of Technology Transition usually is looking to accelerate projects involving things like weapons and information technology, Dr. Russell said. It came to McGowan to see what could be done for its "wounded warriors."

"There's a lot of research going on," said Cynthia Gonsalves, director of the Office of Technology Transition. "It's time to get it to our soldiers."

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