By Ada "Peer-Review" Sparks
At the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center outside Orlando this week, a small unit of Navy scientists put up six posters and delivered five talks — and walked away with a third-place award for their trouble.
The researchers, from Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) San Antonio, were among the presenters at the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS), held Aug. 3–6 and organized around combat casualty care, military medicine and related fields, according to the U.S. Central Command's public affairs office.
The topics ranged widely. Immunologist Dao Ho presented early lab work on how blood vessels respond to a "novel whole blood analogue" — a synthetic stand-in for blood that could, in theory, be used to resuscitate wounded troops before real blood is available. Research fellow Hope Newcomer-Neeson described using human stem-cell-derived retinal tissue to model how laser weapons injure eyes. Scientist Issac Abassah presented on how high-power acoustic energy triggers stress signals in cells, and University of Texas at San Antonio intern Brooke McGill — participating through a Navy internship program for students — showed a 3D lab model for studying electromagnetic radiation exposure.
The award-winning poster, from scientists Tarea Burton and Andres Martinez Murillo, examined a sterilization method called Ross M1 for reusing disposable dental instruments and 3D-printed materials in emergencies — a practical question for military medics far from resupply.
A word of caution is due here: everything reported above comes from a single source, the Navy's own public affairs release describing its own symposium presentations. These are conference posters and talks, not published, peer-reviewed papers, and the descriptions are necessarily thin — a title, a directorate, a photo credit. Nothing here has been independently verified, replicated, or reviewed outside the Pentagon's own research symposium. Readers curious about the underlying science should watch for peer-reviewed publication, where methods and data get a harder look.
Still, the through-line is real: military medicine is quietly running lab experiments on synthetic blood, laser eye injuries, and battlefield sterilization — the unglamorous research that shapes what happens in a combat hospital.
Extraordinary claims. Ordinary evidence? Then no.
— Compiled from U.S. Central Command (DVIDS) public affairs releases on the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."