Page 70 - Mass General Brigham - Innovators Guide 1.0

70 INNO V AT O RS GUIDE | M ASS GENERAL BRIGH AM

13
Managing Conflicts

13 of Interest (COI)

Legacy of invention at

Mass General Brigham

“We were able to show that if you breathe tiny doses of nitric oxide—a
known poisonous gas that comes out of the exhaust pipes of cars
and trucks and forms nitrogen dioxide, which when dissolved in water
produces acid rain and kills fish—that the blood vessels in the lung
would dilate, but not the vessels in the body. It’s all about the dose
and local action. That’s the key to the invention. It’s one of the great
Massachusetts General Hospital successes in the translation of a
laboratory finding. A half million Americans have breathed this gas for
up to 5 days. It saves blue babies and they go on to live normal lives. It’s
the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done.”

Warren Zapol, MD
Director, Anesthesia Center for Critical Care Research, Massachusetts General Hospital;
Reginald Jenney Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School