As part of our series of interviews with members of VASCOVID’s Scientific Advisory Board, we were able to briefly chat with Joan Ramon Masclans, who is the Head of the Critical Care Department at Hospital del Mar. He is also the head of the Critical illness research group at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute Foundation. He became a Professor of Medicine in 2015, and now he is the vice-Dean of the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) Medical School and has supervised 12 doctoral theses, published more than 100 articles and participated in several competitive research projects.
Dr. Masclans was invited to participate in the project as an advisor because his research interests focus on the epidemiology, biomarkers and therapy of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. He also investigates muscle dysfunction, microbiome alteration, and psycho-physiological effects on intensive care unit patients. His first involvement with VASCOVID, as he recalls, happened because his group actively collaborates with Dr. Jaume Mesquida’s group from the Parc Taulí Hospital in other fields of clinical research.
Which are the benefits of the VASCOVID device from the perspective of the medical sector?
I think that analyzing and studying the microcirculation of patients is very useful, both for conducting physiological and pathological studies and also to broaden the understanding of these therapies and their effects. And even more so with non-invasive monitoring systems.
Are there any other possible applications of near-infrared light, the technology used in VASCOVID, in clinical research?
Yes, as I said before, I think there might be some applications at the level of the mechanisms of action and the response to treatments, both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical.
What would you like to see at the end of the project? What are your expectations?
I would like to see that, beyond its use for physiological research, it is also useful for clinicians that monitor patients with bedside instrumentation. This device could serve to evaluate the response to treatments or to predict their effects with a certain degree of immediacy.
The Critical illness research group aims to describe the mechanisms that cause illnesses and damage to critically ill patients by conducting clinical research on patients and experimental models. One of their research lines is the hemodynamic monitoring of critically ill patients. They also investigate the micro-circulatory alterations in sepsis using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and polarized light microscopy
