Commander's Blog

Since our establishment more than 30 years ago, USAMMDA has witnessed the success of numerous medical products and devices that have been used to save many lives, both military and civilian. While some items may take longer than others to develop and produce, the dedication of our team and our partners remains the same – we never stop working until the given requirement has been met.

Later this month, our organization will gather to celebrate a great achievement of more than four decades of effort: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of tafenoquine as a prophylactic drug for the treatment of malaria. This particular milestone is the result of the successful teamwork between industry partners and the USAMRMC's labs at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Science in Thailand, and our own USAMMDA family.

The success of the tafenoquine product will not only help to bolster the strength and readiness of our military, but it will also help to protect our civilian population as well. As malaria's transmission through infected mosquitoes can occur worldwide, our end goal is to eradicate the sickness, and possible death, caused by the illness.

While we continue our efforts to help save lives on and off the battlefield, our USAMMDA team is also working to improve the quality of life for those returning from battle. We're developing new technologies to alleviate the harmful effects of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder on our veterans. Not only have we seen great success with the Laboratory Assay for TBI, which helps to detect instances of mild TBI, the BrainScope® One and Infrascanner 2000® devices are showing great promise in the detection of brain injuries. Also, we recently awarded a Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium agreement for the Phase 2 testing of new drugs for the treatment of military-related PTSD, and we're very excited about the prospect of helping those who struggle with this illness.

To support this critical mission, our leadership team will hold an offsite meeting on October 23 to review USAMMDA's Strategic Plan. We're coming together to chart our priorities for fiscal year 2019, and I'm looking forward to hearing more great ideas to make sure USAMMDA remains the best place to work and serve our country.

Well, October is baseball playoff time, and the football season is really in full swing. Speaking of swing, Tiger Woods really rocked the golf world by winning his first tournament in over five years! As for baseball, unfortunately neither of our local clubs made the playoffs despite the great talent on both teams. But as always, there'll always be next season, so let's stay hopeful!

Finally, don't forget about all of our upcoming events at USAMMDA, like the annual Chili Cook-off in November, which is always a great battle to see who will take home the coveted Can o' Beans trophy! And remember that these fun events are great fundraisers towards our holiday party. In fact, we raised quite a bit with our Fall Kick-off party last month. I'm extremely proud of the participation shown by our USAMMDA family, and I'm looking forward to another great holiday celebration in December!

Let's always remember that we're saving lives with everything we do here at USAMMDA!

COL Ryan Bailey