This central platform offers state-of-the-art simulation of clinically-meaningful trauma models, monitoring, imaging and tissue/fluid analyses. In the second funding period, several trauma models were developed and extensively characterized, including a blunt abdominal trauma and repetitive TBI in mice. In a pig TBI model, metabolic and oxidative stress monitoring has been established integrating all features of standard neuro-intensive care. Moreover, an animal free ex vivo human whole blood model was established to simulate the systemic response to traumatic challenges. In the next funding period, the trauma modelling and monitoring unit continues to design and refine clinically relevant murine and animal-free trauma models. The trauma imaging unit provides the latest imaging approaches, including in vivo monitoring of barrier function, which are readily transferable to the human setting. In the trauma-tissue analysis unit, biomechanical characterization of tissues, histological processing and common analyses of inflammatory profiles are conducted. The translational trauma unit will plan, coordinate and perform prospective, observational, mono- and multi-centered trauma studies with a focus on (poly)trauma, TBI, and posttraumatic complications such as sepsis and multiple organ failure.
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
