Pentagon awards $3.4M grant to develop urine test predicting stress fractures in recruits

Published Aug 12, 12:30 PM UTC

The Pentagon has awarded a $3.4 million grant to Rosalind Franklin University and Old Dominion University to develop a non-invasive urine test that can predict stress fractures in military recruits. Bone-stress injuries affect up to 8% of recruits and cost the Department of Defense about $100 million annually in medical expenses. The four-year grant aims to create a biomarker panel that flags early signs of bone-stress injuries in the legs before they become severe fractures. Researchers will study military recruit cohorts over time, including gender-specific analyses. The project is led by Shawn Flanagan of Rosalind Franklin's Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR). The article also references a separate Uniformed Services University study finding that new recruits are more likely to sustain multiple stress fractures than longer-serving personnel.