Hines VA senior researcher named 2023 VA Magnuson Award winner

The Magnuson Award is the Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Service's highest honor and is awarded each year to one researcher for outstanding achievement in rehabilitation research.

Lieber was recognized for his work to return functional capacity, mobility, and quality of life to Veterans with physical disabilities, including spinal cord injuries (SCI).

“Dr. Lieber exemplifies the legacy of Dr. Paul B. Magnuson through his dedication to Veterans in need of rehabilitative approaches and through his team approach and entrepreneurial spirit, which have enabled him to make a real-world impact and help restore patients to their families, jobs, and life,” said Dr. William Wolf, Hines VA associate chief of staff for research and development.

Lieber has worked with VA research since 1982 and began his research at Hines VA Hospital in 2015. He is also a professor in the departments of physiology, biomedical engineering, and physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the chief scientific officer and senior vice president at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, an organization in Chicago founded by Dr. Paul Magnuson, for whom this award is named.

Since joining the VA in 1982, Lieber’s work has led to several major advances in the field of basic and applied muscle physiology, most notably spinal cord injury. His work has revolutionized surgical approaches to restoring hand and limb function and enhanced rehabilitative approaches to muscle strengthening, significantly improving outcomes for Veterans with SCI and other conditions, such as stroke and cerebral palsy.

Early in his career, Lieber developed surgical tools to restore arm and hand function in disabled Veterans – his laser diffraction device is now used in operating rooms across the country to optimize surgical muscle transfer in spinal cord-injured patients. As a result of this advance, patients receiving tendon transfers after SCI can move with approximately twice the strength as could be achieved with previous methods.

While working in the San Diego VA Health Care System, Lieber and colleagues invented a clinical muscle stimulator for strengthening skeletal muscles to help patients recover from muscle atrophy. Later in his career, Lieber and colleagues developed a checklist of potential donor muscles in the wrist, forearm and hand. This checklist has been reprinted dozens of times in all major hand surgery textbooks.

Most recently, Lieber’s biological analysis of human muscle biopsies led to the significant discovery that brain injury causing muscle contracture (tightening) leads to a 70% decrease in muscle stem cell population. This observation has led to new pharmacologic treatments for muscle contracture, which are currently in early feasibility testing.

“For 40 years, Dr. Lieber has dedicated himself to the care of our nation’s heroes,” said James Doelling Hines VA hospital director. “Through his research, many Americans with spinal cord injuries are living healthier, fuller lives. No one is more deserving of 2023 Magnuson Award.”

Lieber has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed journal articles, many review articles, and 36 book chapters. Other researchers have cited Lieber’s work more than 31,000 times. He also holds five patents on devices for restoring limb strength and function.

Lieber’s other awards include the Barelli Award from the American Society of Biomechanics, the highest biomechanics-related award in the U.S.; the Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, their highest honor; and a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.

The Magnuson Award honors the legacy of surgeon Dr. Paul B. Magnuson, who helped create the modern VA health care system, and its academic affiliations with medical universities nationwide. Magnuson continuously sought new treatments and devices for his patients as they faced disability. Magnuson understood his duty, not just to cure, but to also restore a patient "to his family, his job, and his life."

 

About Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital

Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital, located 12 miles west of downtown Chicago on a 147-acre campus, offers primary, extended and specialty care to Veteran patients in the Chicago area. We are the largest VA in the state of Illinois, where more than a million Veterans reside. The hospital treats more than 44,000 Veterans from World War II through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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