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C. Michael Cotton, an associate professor of pediatrics at Duke, has done a feasibility study by using cord blood stem cells from babies to help repair their injured brains.
It is very common for babies to get brain damage during labor due to minimal oxygen and blood flow to the brain. This brain injury is called hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), which is identified by significant evidence of brain injury caused by asphyxia.
It is normally treated by whole body cooling, which reduces a baby’s chances of having complications by up to 35 percent. C. Michael Cotton has been working on this feasibility study to further reduce the chances that babies will suffer from complications.
Cotton had started working on this study in 2009 when he received the necessary funding from a DTRI pilot award. His team gathered 23 babies that suffer from HIE in a phase I trial.
Since the first feasibility study was fairly small, Cotton is now working on developing a randomized trial by attempting to enroll up to 400 newborn babies. He is also working with other healthcare experts in order to speed up the process.
Cotton believes the trials are very important to help improve therapy provided by many healthcare related networks. The goal is to make all groups work together and be fully committed in order to be successful at improving the lives of children.
Once a working relationship is established among the networks, Cotton believes ideas and theories will be rapidly translated into practical therapeutic options for patients.
More details about Cotton’s work are available by following the link here.