Pennsylvania is home to nearly 700,000 Veterans—the fourth-largest Veteran population in the nation. Southwestern Pennsylvania, in particular, has a strong Veteran presence, with many service members returning after military careers and a large network of reserve and National Guard units based nearby. That presence drives a robust partnership between the University of Pittsburgh, the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS), and UPMC. Together, these institutions conduct groundbreaking research aimed at improving the health of Veterans locally and nationally.
For many Veterans, service doesn’t end when they leave the military. For some, it evolves into new forms of commitment: continuing to serve others through medicine, research, and education. Department of Medicine faculty and staff at the University of Pittsburgh and the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System embody this ethos. Through their work, the experiences of military service are translated into research and clinical care that directly improve the lives of Veterans, active service members, and the broader community.
Service Shapes Science
For Dr. Will Bain, a Veteran of post-9/11 deployments, the path to medicine was inseparable from his desire to serve. “The decision to join the military is almost always about service to others,” he reflects. “Medicine was a way to continue serving others through patient care, research, and teaching. My service at the VA provides a way to serve my fellow Veterans and to contribute to our understanding of the human body to serve all.”
Bain’s military experience has left an indelible mark on his research. He vividly recalls his time in Baghdad and Fallujah, where burn pits – large open-air fires used to dispose of waste – created thick, acrid clouds of toxic smoke. “They were disgusting,” he remembers. “I nearly vomited after a run because they were burning something foul on my base.” This exposure inspired a major focus in his research: understanding how toxic environmental exposures and pathogens injure the lungs.
“Broadly, I study lung injury,” Bain explains. “The lung can be injured by pathogens, like pneumonia, or by toxic exposures, such as burn pit smoke. Learning how to protect the lung benefits the military, Veterans, all of us.” He emphasizes that the legacy of military service in medicine is long-standing: General George Washington, for example, mandated smallpox vaccination for soldiers to protect against respiratory transmission. Bain sees his work as a modern extension of that same principle: using science to prevent and treat injuries unique to military service.
Dr. Ron Poropatich, a retired Army officer and Director of Pitt’s Center for Military Medicine Research, brings a dual perspective to Veterans’ health as both a provider and a patient. “I did 30 years in the Army,” he says. “I could get my care at a military hospital and also at the Pittsburgh VA. I understand what it’s like to be on both ends, providing the clinical care and receiving it.” Research at Center for Military Medicine Research spans traumatic brain injury, musculoskeletal disorders, wound care, and burn pit exposures—all conditions that disproportionately affect Veterans. He notes, “Burn pit exposure is very much a specific Veteran problem. Concussion and musculoskeletal injuries are prevalent too, and novel wound treatments are crucial given chronic and complex injuries.”
Understanding the Unique Needs of Veterans
Veterans face health challenges that often differ from the general population. Chronic lung disease, multi-system conditions, mental health challenges, and complex comorbidities are frequently shaped by military service. Dr. Bain notes another critical factor: geography. “About one-quarter of Veterans live in rural areas,” he says. “That makes the delivery of high-quality specialty care challenging because Veterans may have to travel many miles for even basic care, let alone complex specialty services.”
Beyond distance, veterans are also affected by service-specific exposures. “Toxic military exposures seem to cause major health problems that have not been fully characterized,” Dr. Bain adds. “We have to account for those exposures—what Veterans faced when they ‘ran toward the sound of gunfire’—as we think about research and clinical care.”
Dr. Charles Dela Cruz, Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Research whose research focuses on respiratory infections and environmental exposures, adds that Veteran-focused research requires accounting for military-specific exposures, deployment stress, and unique healthcare delivery systems. “Veterans frequently experience health issues shaped by military service: chronic lung disease from smoke, burn-pit, and occupational exposures; higher rates of respiratory infections; and complex multi-system conditions that intersect with mental health challenges,” he says. By combining electronic health records, genomics from the Million Veteran Program, and mechanistic preclinical models, Dela Cruz aims to identify how service-related exposures drive chronic disease and to develop targeted prevention and treatment strategies that can be integrated within the VA healthcare system.
Other research by DOM physician scientists, such as Dr. Walid Gellad, Associate Chief of Staff for Research, complement these efforts, focusing on the quality, safety, and value of prescribing and medication use among Veterans. Gellad, who studies how pharmaceutical policy and prescription practices impact patient safety, is developing machine learning models to predict opioid-related adverse events using healthcare and social services data: a critical issue for Veterans, many of whom face chronic pain or complex comorbidities. And, as a clinician who also cares for patients at VAPHS, Gellad informs his approach to research through real-world clinical experience.
Bridging the gap between bench and bedside is never simple. “The science of medicine takes extraordinary effort and time,” Bain acknowledges. “We need strong support from the public, through government funding and participation in clinical trials, to make healthcare better for Veterans and for everyone.” Yet, local research at Pitt and the VA feeds into national efforts to improve Veteran care. Poropatich explains: “A lot of what we do here at the Pittsburgh VA gets funneled through NAVREF (the National Association of Veterans Research and Education Foundation), where it’s developed and shared across the VA system.”
Collaborative initiatives exemplify this bench-to-bedside approach. Bain’s ongoing work with a West Virginia University toxicology team leverages a state-of-the-art model burn pit exposure system to study lung injury at the cellular and molecular levels. Dela Cruz’s research projects integrate biomarkers with real-world clinical data to personalize lung infection and injury for the treatment for Veterans. These projects highlight the power of cross-disciplinary research in improving care, while remaining grounded in the lived experiences of military service.
Innovation and Technology in Veterans’ Care
The Pittsburgh VA has also been a pioneer in telemedicine, connecting Veterans across rural and remote locations. “There are Veterans living in American Samoa, Hawaii, and Europe who are still eligible for care,” Poropatich notes. “Telemedicine helps bridge time and distance, ensuring they can access high-quality care.”
AI and machine learning are increasingly leveraged not only for clinical decision support but also to optimize care delivery, from predicting adverse events to guiding complex therapeutic decisions. These technologies, combined with the strong collaboration between Pitt, VA, and UPMC, create a powerful ecosystem for research and clinical care. Dr. Poropatich sees AI as transformative, both in easing the administrative burden of note-taking and in creating decision-support systems that harness massive VA and UPMC datasets.
Looking Forward
The future of Veterans’ health research at Pitt and the VA is dynamic and forward-looking. Initiatives in military exposure science, lung injury, traumatic brain injury, precision oncology, wound care, and AI-assisted healthcare promise to deepen understanding and improve outcomes for Veterans nationwide. DOM clinicians and researchers exemplify how military experience can shape research priorities, inspire innovation, and inform clinical care.
From the battlefield to the research lab, these physician-researchers demonstrate that service extends far beyond active duty. By translating lived experience into scientific discovery and patient care, they honor their fellow Veterans and ensure that those who have served receive care tailored to the challenges they uniquely face. As Poropatich aptly summarizes: “As we say in the Army, ‘One team, one fight.’ We’re all fighting against disease in all these different populations we serve, but we’re one team.”