| At the heart of the GEMI Fund’s raison d’être is innovation. All nine grantees’ research projects revolve around exploration of
perhaps unconventional uses of gas in a medical application.
Dr Maria M. Mota, PhD, (Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal) and her team are looking into how CO could be used to fight cerebral malaria. Dr Mota was represented at the ceremony by Ana Pamplona Santos, a post-doc at the laboratory. ‘We are very glad to have more money to tackle this disease that attacks millions of people around the world. Cerebral malaria is the lethal form of malaria that kills 2 million children under five everyyear and I hope we can demonstrate that CO can be used as a therapeutic
gas for the treatment of cerebral malaria. If we could reverse
the spread of cerebral malaria it would be a great breakthrough.’
Ana Pamplona Santos also spoke enthusiastically of the GEMI Fund seminar and how it brought together exponents of different gases
and applications. Equally enthusiastic was Dr Ben Williams, PhD, of Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, USA. His research topic is electron paramagnetic resonance measurement of brain tissue pO2 and oxidative stress during hyperbaric oxygen therapy following stroke. ‘The GEMI Fund has been really instrumental in supporting some of the research staff and the equipment we need. Specifically we will be measuring tissue oxygen concentration in a rat stroke model. It’s a therapy that has been used before in a number of animal studies and it is shown to be effective. Adequate studies have not yet been done, however, to refine the technique with regard to dosage and timing.’ Dr Williams confessed he was impatient to get back to the lab to continue doing the research. ‘We’ve done a number of preliminary studies and have been making some of the measurements but now, with this funding, we can have the instrumentation and the equipment we need to carry out the research we’ve proposed. We can really dig in now.’
FORUM FOR COLLABORATION
Fellow grantee Dr Brian Zuckerbraun, MD, (Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is studying the use of carbon monoxide as a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension. In particular he praised the way the seminar brought together so many potential collaborators and other researchers with whom to exchange information, observations and contacts. ‘It’s been a fantastic day, with a great programme and plenty of stuff I knew nothing about before. I have made some very good contacts.’ On the impact of the grant on his work he commented,
‘I’m aiming high but I think it’s a very worthwhile area. In two years I hope I can come back and report on the efficacy of carbon monoxide with pulmonary arterial hypertension in humans.’Representing the Institute for Surgical Research, University of Munich, Munich, Germany, Dr Nick Plesnila, MD PhD, is looking at the inhalation of NO for the treatment of cerebral and cardiac ischemia. ‘We are working primarily at stroke and traumatic brain injury models, and we’re trying to find out what NO actually does in this context.
We are investigating how NO goes from the lung to the brain and
then what effect has there. We want to know exactly how NO is
transported to the brain and then how we can use the cerebral effect of NO therapeutically.’ On the day’s presentations, Dr Plesnila noted that he had received some excellent input on xenon and CO that sounded really interesting. |
