The Veterans Health Administration Office of Research and Development (ORD) is the research and development agency of the

Veterans Health Administration The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the component of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) led by the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health that implements the healthcare program of the VA through a nationa ...

in the

United States Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

. The department focuses on biomedical and health care research for the care of veterans and wounded soldiers, and has a budget of $1.018 billion in the requested 2012 budget, in addition to $710 million derived from federal and non-federal grants from other agencies. ORD performs intramural research in association with the

VA hospitals The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the component of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) led by the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health that implements the healthcare program of the VA through a nationa ...

, and over 70% of its investigators also provide direct patient care. Its achievements include research into

prosthetic limbs In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

and mental health issues such as substance use,

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats o ...

, and depression. It also publishes the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development. The office has existed since about 1925.

Departments

ORD consists of four "Research and Development Services", which are the Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service, the Clinical Science Research and Development Service (including the Cooperative Studies Program), the Health Services Research and Development Service, and the Rehabilitation Research and Development Service, as well as a number of ORD-Wide Programs and Funded Field Centers.

Achievements

ORD's historical achievements include that VA researchers in the 1960s performed the first successful liver transplant. Three VA researchers have won the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accordi ...

: Ferid Murad shared the prize in 1998 for

nitric oxide Nitric oxide (nitrogen oxide or nitrogen monoxide) is a colorless gas with the formula . It is one of the principal oxides of nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a free radical: it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its ...

signaling in the cardiovascular system, and

Andrew Schally Andrzej Viktor "Andrew" Schally (born 30 November 1926) is an American endocrinologistAndrew V. Schally"Andrew V. Schally" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. of Polish ancestry, who was a corecipient, with Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, of ...

and Rosalyn Yalow shared the prize in 1977 for studies of

peptide hormone Peptide hormones or protein hormones are hormones whose molecules are peptide, or proteins, respectively. The latter have longer amino acid chain lengths than the former. These hormones have an effect on the endocrine system of animals, including h ...

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control United States Department of Veterans Affairs