COSTA MESA, Calif., March 10 (UPI) -- The Office of Naval Research announced it has awarded Virginia Commonwealth University's Reanimation Engineering Shock Center pre-clinical research monies.

Officials say four awards totaling more than $3.5 million will go toward VCURES' severe decompression sickness treatment studies, research into Synthetic Blood International's Oxycyte treatment of organ damage from arterial gas embolism, post-doctoral candidate research of DCS and AGE and pilot studies into the effectiveness of Oxycyte in treating traumatic brain injury.

The announced awards are in addition to a recent Defense Department award granted to California-based Synthetic Blood International Inc. for clinical trial with Oxycyte. "These four grants will support pre-clinical research studies involving Oxycyte perfluorocarbon therapeutic oxygen carrier and blood substitute, the release said.

"These grants will allow us to expand upon the previous studies which showed that early intervention with Oxycyte can prevent the destruction of nerve cells, brain tissue in a number of conditions including decompression illness and gas embolism," Bruce Spiess, Virginia Commonwealth University professor of anesthesiology and emergency medicine, director of Anesthesiology research and director of VCURES, said in a statement.

The pre-clinical studies and research into effectiveness of Oxycyte is an effort by the U.S. Defense Department to more effectively treat traumatic brain injuries, the "largest single cause of mortality and long-term morbidity for coalition troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan," the release said.