# Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research & Development Center for Limb Loss and MoBility (CLiMB)

> **NIH VA I50** · VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM · 2024 · —

## Abstract

CENTER SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The mission of the Center for Limb Loss and MoBility (CLiMB) is to preserve, restore, and enhance functional
mobility, independence, and participation in Veterans with lower limb loss or other musculoskeletal impairments.
CLiMB serves Veterans with mobility disabilities arising from medical comorbidities or post-service trauma, as
well as those with injuries sustained while on active duty, including small but important cohorts of women and
other under-represented minorities. CLiMB accomplishes this mission by conducting innovative and rigorous
research; disseminating discoveries to Veteran patients and providers, VA leadership, and other stakeholders;
and translating knowledge and devices into clinical care. CLiMB’s nationally and internationally recognized
Principal Investigators are a multidisciplinary group of clinician-scientists, engineers, biomechanists, and
epidemiologists. The Center’s scientific approaches and research Focus Areas span basic science, through
engineering design and development, to applied clinical research. CLiMB’s research Focus Areas are rooted in
the parallel importance of studying (1) Prevention of impairment onset and progression, (2) Innovative mobility
device development, (3) Evidence-based treatment and rehabilitation interventions, and (4) Personalized
surgical and prosthetic/orthotic treatment interventions. Focus Area projects are conceived through a synergistic
collaboration with patients, clinicians, clinician-scientists, and scientists both within and outside the Center who
identify and define unmet clinical needs in our Veteran patients. Project success is achieved through CLiMB’s
clinical translational pathway where projects often begin in a Discovery or Innovation phase and culminate in
clinical Translation. Consequently, the Center has placed a significant emphasis on ensuring that its research
and innovations have a demonstrated clinical need and a pathway to translation to ensure that Veterans benefit
directly from its work. CLiMB Translation can take on different forms (knowledge and devices) including evidence
to support clinical practice guidelines, physician decision support tools, patient decision aids available at the
point of care, and collaborations with industry to commercialize devices that are made available to Veterans.
CLiMB’s success and achievements are the result of unique laboratory and intellectual resources that cut across
our Focus Areas. These Core resources accelerate and facilitate the collaborative work of internationally
renowned clinicians and scientists with complementary expertise in rehabilitation science, engineering, and
clinical care. These resources have been cultivated by our Center for years, and with this renewal we are further
formalizing their structure, leadership, and purpose to include the following seven Cores: (1) Biomechanics &
Basic Science, (2) Imaging & Motion Analysis, (3) Computational Modeling, (4) Rapid Prototyping, (5) Clinical...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10782964
- **Project number:** 5I50RX002357-07
- **Recipient organization:** VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** Glenn Klute
- **Activity code:** I50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-10-01 → 2027-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10782964

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10782964, Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research & Development Center for Limb Loss and MoBility (CLiMB) (5I50RX002357-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-30 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10782964. Licensed CC0.

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