Decompression Sickness

While Oxycyte carries oxygen, it also carries other gasses, including nitrogen. When humans dive deep in the ocean and then surface too quickly, our bodies become supersaturated with nitrogen. As you’ve observed when opening a can or bottle of a carbonated beverage, supersaturated gasses bubble. When that happens in people, it’s called decompression sickness -- where nitrogen bubbles form in the bloodstream. Those bubbles of nitrogen can block blood flow and cause tissue to become ischemic. Oxycyte not only delivers oxygen where blood flow is decreased, but also appears to absorb nitrogen out of the blood.

We believe Oxycyte may be useful in treating decompression sickness which would be particularly helpful when sailors must escape from a damaged submarine. In this type of situation, currently available treatments such as the uses of hyperbaric chambers are impratical. We believe the U. S. Navy plans to file an IND and is funding the research to use Oxycyte in this indication.