By advancing the use of a pH-balanced formulation of vitamin C, pioneers like Yugeesh Lankadeva and his research team of The Florey in Melbourne Australia are offering renewed hope to patients with sepsis worldwide. As a patient representative and core group member of the CMSM, Idelette Nutma had the honour of interviewing professor Lankadeva earlier this month.
Right now professor Yugeesh Lankadeva and his team are carrying out the MEGA-SCORES trial, for which they received a $4.9 million funding boost from the Australian Federal Government.
Their innovative research bodes well for the field, as it has the potential to transform the treatment of sepsis and help reduce the global sepsis burden, while also aiming to prevent the long-term complications that affect patients, families, and society as a whole.
From both the research and patient perspectives it is hopeful to see how this formula of vitamin C has already shown promising results.
In recent preclinical studies, sodium ascorbate has been shown to reverse sepsis-induced brain, kidney, and cardiovascular dysfunction. The MEGA-SCORES research group is now moving towards multicentre Phase Ib and Phase II clinical trials across every state of Australia over the next 4 years.
Essential in their approach are ‘mechanism guided’ clinical trials.
They published their earlier pre-clinical research papers in Critical Care Medicine in February of 2021, in October 2023 in Critical Care (BMC) and in August of this year in the British Journal of Anesthesia.
You can watch the full interview on Youtube.