Carlos Bravo-Iñiguez (he/him) wants to stop the bleeding. A surgeon turned scientist, he embraces challenges that cross disciplines, from lung cancer to neuromodulation. That’s why he’s working on a “neural tourniquet,” a non-invasive way to use vagus nerve stimulation to make the body better at the blood clotting needed to reduce deadly bleeding after surgery, trauma, or even in the disease of hemophilia.
“Every single thing that I work on in this neural tourniquet is something that is in none of my books,” he said. “That’s super exciting that we were able to generate some type of knowledge and expertise that could potentially improve patient care. I think that’s what drives me the most.”
Results in animal models hold promise for trials in people, who face the risk of fatal bleeding from the delivery room to the operating room to the battlefield. Another target for neuromodulation via focused ultrasound might be inflammation, he thinks.
The through line in Bravo-Iñiguez’s career is bioelectronic medicine and a fascination with technology that dates to childhood. Later, while training as a surgical resident in Mexico, he found a way to dictate data from surgery cases on his iPods to be added later to databases stored in the hospital’s cloud. “That helped us improve the outcomes of that clinic.”
Away from the lab, Bravo-Iñiguez loves music, with tastes spanning from techno to classical and reggae. He’s going to an Oasis reunion show next year.
“I think I could not live without music.”
— Elizabeth Cooney
This story has been corrected to reflect that Bravo-Iñiguez is part of a larger group of people working on neural tourniquets.
