SAVING the lives of people who have been seriously injured or suffered a stroke or heart attack can be a race against time. As soon as cells are deprived of oxygen they start dying. In the brain, that triggers a disastrous cascade of events in which cells can continue to die even after the oxygen supply is restored.
That’s why doctors have long sought ways of protecting oxygen-deprived cells (New Scientist, 8 March 2003, p 46). The longer they can keep cells alive without oxygen, the more time they have to patch up the patient, perhaps by closing a…
