CIB Mission Thrusts
Developing a Greater Understanding of
Human Tolerance to Injury
The Center for Injury Biomechanics (CIB) is an interdisciplinary research center that is a partnership between the Virginia Tech College of Engineering and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The CIB is part of the Virginia Tech - Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences joint graduate program.
The center investigates injury mechanisms following trauma to develop a greater understanding of human tolerance to injury, to engineer enhanced safety countermeasures, and to mitigate the occurrence of serious injury in society. By using a multidisciplinary approach to solving real-world biomechanics problems, the center combines the biomedical expertise at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center with Virginia Tech’s top-rated college of Engineering. Applications of this research are far-reaching and include automobile safety, military safety, and sports biomechanics.
Sports
The CIB's sports research combines athlete monitoring, laboratory testing, and computational modeling to better understand how sports-related exposures contribute to injury risk. Through the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab, the CIB has developed independent helmet rating systems for multiple sports, including football, hockey, soccer, cycling, equestrian sport, and more. This work has helped inform safety standards, progress protective equipment design, and advance evidence-based strategies to improve athlete safety.
Military
The CIB's military research focuses on understanding how blast and impact exposures affect the human body and contribute to injury. Current work includes investigating the mechanisms underlying traumatic injury, evaluating the performance of protective equipment, and working to define human tolerance to complex loading environments. Through experimental blast and impact testing, computational modeling, and biomechanical analysis, this research advances knowledge of injury risk and supports the development of improved protective technologies and injury mitigation strategies for military and other high-risk environments.
Automotive
The CIB's automotive research focuses on improving transportation safety by understanding how vehicles, occupants, and the environment interact during injury-causing events. Research areas include occupant and pedestrian safety, pre-crash analysis, tire and terrain interactions, and emerging mobility challenges such as e-scooters and eVTOL systems. This work supports the development of improved safety technologies and strategies to reduce injury across current and future transportation environments.
Therapeutics
The CIB's therapeutics research focuses on developing innovative approaches to reduce the effects of traumatic injury and improve recovery outcomes. Current work includes exploration and development of non-invasive treatment strategies for traumatic brain injury, as well as emerging nanoparticle-based interventions designed to target injury-related processes at the cellular level. By combining biomedical engineering and translational research approaches, the CIB explores new methods to understand, treat, and mitigate the long-term impacts of traumatic injuries.