Strokecast

In Episode 035 back in October, I talk with Dr. Nirav Shah about the general state of stem cell therapy for stroke survivors. Afterwards, Nirav connected me with the lead researcher on the University of Miami's stem cell research team, Dr. Dileep Yavagal so I could talk to him about his research. That brings us to today's episode. Dr. Yavagal specializes in vascular neurosurgery. That includes procedures like thrombectomy, where a doctor inserts a catheter into a blood vessel in the groin to go up into the brain a pull out the clot. Mechanical thrombectomy can be done up to 24 hours after stroke symptoms begin, and it can have a tremendous impact on minimizing the damage from an ischemic stroke. What it doesn't do today is help patients recover from stroke. It means fewer brain cells die, but the dead and damaged ones don't get any help. When we say time is tissue or time is brain, this is why. Every minute that a clot blocks a vessel, more brain dies. To recover functionality today, we rely on neuroplastic