$100 million research project to goes to Harvard
According to ESPN Boston, Harvard University has been tabbed to oversee a $100 million research initiative looking into studying and treating injuries suffered by football players.
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is negotiating a deal with the NFL to award $100 million to Harvard specialists for the study. The specialists will work with the NFLPA to study 1,000 retired players, looking at injuries including brain trauma and knee injuries, according to a story in the Boston Globe.
The project spans 10 years and is being funded by money the union committed to as part of the 2011 collective bargaining agreement with the league.
“No one has ever studied these players before,” Dr. Lee Nadler, dean for clinical and translational research at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the proposed study, told CNN. “There have been postmortem studies looking at the brains of previous players but not the players today.”
Two dozen research centers applied for the study, including the University of Michigan, Duke University Health System and Harvard as finalists with Harvard coming out on top.
