WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will celebrate 93 years of improving the lives of veterans and other Americans through the department’s health research and research programs during National VA Research Week held May 14 to 18.

The 2018 theme, “InnoVAtion to Implementation,” highlights VA researchers’ role in identifying and testing new ways to prevent and treat illness and disease, and translating those ideas into everyday health care for veterans and other Americans.

“Most veterans will be familiar with the slogan ‘improvise, adapt and overcome,’ said Acting VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “This captures the forward-leaning spirit of the VA research community.

For more than nine decades, VA’s researchers have eagerly taken on problems affecting the health of our veterans and searched for new solutions and better ways of addressing those health issues.

The results of VA’s research have improved health care dramatically – not only for veterans, but for all Americans and people around the world.”

VA medical centers will mark Research Week with special events such as tours of research facilities, lectures, poster displays and luncheons to honor the veterans who participate voluntarily in VA studies.

Events at VA medical centers nationwide will showcase the work of VA researchers in areas ranging from drug discovery, informatics, rehabilitation technology to mental health, caregiving and complementary and integrative health.

One focus of the events will be VA’s Million Veteran Program (MVP), now one of the world’s largest genomic databases, with well over 650,000 veterans enrolled.

More than 20 research studies using MVP data are already underway, on topics ranging from heart and kidney disease to mental health.

To learn more about the contributions of VA researchers, past and present, visit www.research.va.gov.

For more information on local and national events marking National VA Research Week, visit www.research.va.gov/researchweek.