The why
Dr. Jonathan Eliason’s personal reason for choosing research in hemorrhage control comes from observations gained when he was deployed overseas.
“My partners I worked with closely evaluated the reason why people ended up dying in the field. It was because of bleeding to death,“ Eliason said.
The research
Eliason has a specific interest in devices that might be used in a minimally invasive fashion to control hemorrhage:
“My specific focus has been on a balloon catheter to put into the aorta through the groin artery so while that balloon is inflated, it shunts all the blood to the vital organs.”
The discovery
Eliason learned that if the balloon is left up toot long, it can be harmful to the spinal cord because blood will not flow back to the lower extremities and spinal cord adequately.
The research continues
Eliason’s other area of focus is aortic aneurysms and why cigarette smoke seems to be such a trigger for them. He studies the influence of inhaled tobacco products and how they’re linked to aortic pathology.
“Millions of people have a smoking history, but a small subset have aneurysms. Of the people with aortic aneurysms, 80 percent have smoked,” Eliason said.
In his own words
Eliason talks more about what drives his research and the solutions he’s pursuing in the video above.