FIRST CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR LIGHT THERAPY

 

Shepherd University | Center of Excellence for Photobiomodulation at Shepherd University

On March 21, with national and state officials attending, Dr. Mary Hendrix, President of Shepherd University formally inaugurated The Center of Excellence for Photobiomodulation (PBM).

 

The ceremony was the culmination of many years of work.  It was an historic moment for the PBM movement.

 

During the October 2017 PBM Strategic Planning Session, the Center of Excellence was a key priority, along with establishing the PBM Foundation and a testing program.  It was deemed important that the PBM movement had a formal “home” from which to build collaborative relationships with scientists, practitioners, and industry while attracting the resources needed to take PBM mainstream. 

 

The Center of Excellence for PBM will become the framework for aggregating, curating, and disseminating information on discovery and application of this biotech breakthrough.

 

Shepherd University was the Center of Excellence’s logical location. Shepherd University’s School of Nursing was the first in the world to formally incorporate knowledge and use of PBM into their graduation requirements.  Its 400 nursing students interact with PBM’s top researchers while gaining “hands on” experience using the most advanced PBM medical devices.  Shepherd’s PBM adjunct faculty is a “who’s who” of global experts.

 

President Hendrix also made Shepherd a logical location.  She is a leading scientist in cancer research, writing more than 280 published papers on biomedical research and serving on national boards relating to health policy and medical innovation.

 

This natural alignment was further augmented by relationships with PBM supportive medical and research facilities.  These include the Martinsburg Veterans Health Center, one of the largest in the nation, the Mountaineer Recovery Center, the National Conservation Training Center, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Center.

 

In July 2019, the West Virginia state government recognized Shepherd’s leadership role with a $2.7 million grant to address rural health and use PBM for managing pain to reduce Opioid use.  West Virginia remains America’s epicenter for Opioid addiction and deaths.

 

In December 2021, the Governor of West Virginia allocated $500,000 under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) for establishing the PBM Center of Excellence order to, as the Governor announced, “develop cutting edge technique that manages pain and does so many different things that could very well be a breakthrough in the COVID situation.”

 

“The Center’s vision is to universally improve health and wellbeing by using the science of PBM and its devices to deliver therapies to speed recoveries from injury and illness,” said Dr. Jennifer Flora, Shepherd’s Director of PBM Wellness. “We are in the business of changing lives for the better. Our goal is to help people thrive using innovative technology and it starts today at the Wellness Center with convenient PBM services for our campus and surrounding community.”

 

Dr. Praveen Arany, the PBM Center of Excellence’s Interim Executive Director, said the Center’s three core goals are to “focus on wellness, explore deaddiction to opioids, and treat long COVID-19 symptoms”.

“A lot of people have had COVID-19 and as they are recovering, we are finding things like fatigue, depression, and chronic diseases, which are causing concern,” Arany said. “We would like to use this innovative treatment that is nonpharmacological and noninvasive and focuses on the host’s resilience. We are trying to make people healthier and better.”

The Center’s launch lays the groundwork for further progress on the science and application of PBM and educating the public about the benefits of this revolutionary treatment.