Addressing Neonatal Brain Injury: HIE Treatment Development with ReAlta Life Sciences’ Dr. Kia Motesharei

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Soumya Shashikumar, Senior Life Sciences Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Dr. Kia Motesharei, President and Chief Operating Officer of ReAlta Life Sciences, about hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and efforts to develop treatments beyond therapeutic hypothermia. HIE is a serious neonatal brain injury caused by insufficient oxygen and blood flow to the brain around the time of birth. Therapeutic hypothermia, or controlled cooling, can help limit inflammation and secondary injury, but there are currently no approved drug therapies for HIE. Dr. Motesharei explains how reperfusion injury can occur when blood flow returns to the brain after oxygen deprivation, triggering an inflammatory cascade that may contribute to further tissue damage. He also discusses why targeting more than one inflammatory pathway may be important and how ReAlta’s investigational approach is intended to address both complement- and neutrophil-driven inflammation. The conversation explores the challenges of neonatal clinical trials, where clinicians may have only hours to identify eligible newborns, explain the research and obtain informed consent from families facing an acute medical crisis.   Because newborns have not yet developed the motor and cognitive abilities used to assess treatments in older patients, early MRI may help measure brain injury while longer-term follow-up evaluates developmental outcomes. Tune in to learn more about HIE, the narrow intervention window in neonatal trials and efforts to develop treatments that could reduce brain injury in newborns. For more life science and medical device content, visit the Xtalks Vitals homepage. https://xtalks.com/vitals/ Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xtalks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xtalks/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Xtalks.Webinars/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xtalks-webconferences YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/XtalksWebinars/featured