Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was awarded $38.6 million from the Department of Defense to expand the orthopedic trauma care research it began last year.

The money will go to the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium, METRC, which conducts studies on treatment and outcomes of major orthopedic injuries from the battlefield.

“The initial funding was critical to establishing the consortium and providing the resources to address some of the immediate research needs of the military in the acute management of severe limb injuries,” said Ellen MacKenzie, principal investigator and the Fred and Julie Soper Professor and Chair of the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, in a statement.

The extra funding will allow the consortium to continue to determine which treatments work well, and also look into related issues, such as prevention of bone infection, chronic pain and overall disability, she said.

The number of civilian center that treat service member with major trauma also will expand from 12 to 24.

Some 82 percent of all service members injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom have suffered significant trauma to one or more limb.

Baltimore Sun file photo of a wounded service member