Shelf-Steady Breast Milk Powder: Interview with Dr. Vansh Langer, CEO at BBy

BBy, a medtech firm primarily based in New York, has developed a twig drying methodology that hospitals can use to course of human breast milk right into a shelf-stable powder. Human breast milk is an extremely vital supply of vitamin for neonates in intensive care models (NICUs). At current, human donor milk is frozen and have to be defrosted prior to make use of in such services. That is extremely labor intensive for workers and may be very wasteful, as extra defrosted milk have to be thrown away and enormous freezers use a variety of electrical energy.

The spray drying expertise developed by BBy converts human breast milk right into a shelf-stable dry powder that may be dissolved in water by medical employees as wanted. Furthermore, employees could make precisely as a lot reconstituted milk as wanted, serving to to cut back waste. The corporate studies that the spray drying course of preserves the bioactive parts in breast milk, such an antibodies.

Medgadget had the chance to talk with Dr. Vansh Langer, CEO at BBy, in regards to the expertise.     

Conn Hastings, Medgadget: Why is breast milk the most effective supply of vitamin for younger infants in neonatal intensive care models? What bioactive parts are current within the milk and the way do they help neonate well being?

Dr. Langer, BBy: It sounds nearly cliché to say that “breast milk is greatest.” The reality is that for neonatal intensive care models, breast milk is important. Its distinctive concoction of vitamins (water, proteins, carbs, fat, minerals and nutritional vitamins) can actually imply the distinction between life and loss of life for a kid.

To offer a fast instance, our workforce lately labored with a child who was born 16 weeks untimely. This little one had an underdeveloped abdomen, so there was no method that it may digest toddler method. (Compared to method, breast milk is far simpler to digest). We fed the child our firm’s powdered breast milk in diluted kind by means of a tube that went down the child’s nostril all the best way to the gut (nasopharyngeal), bypassing the abdomen. I’m thrilled to say that at the moment this little one is 4 months previous with a fully-formed abdomen, and thriving!

Breast milk will not be solely nutrient-rich, it additionally gives antibodies (proteins) that assist infants struggle off infections. A few examples of those proteins embrace lactoferrin and secretory IgA that assist shield towards infections, each viral and bacterial.

Once more, this sounds cliché till you expertise it firsthand within the NICU. I did my medical intern yr on the College of Chicago, and there was one expertise within the NICU that actually drove this side of breast milk dwelling for me. A gaggle of younger infants who had simply traveled from Vietnam got here in, with their adoptive mother and father. All of the infants have been sick with infections. Clearly, adoptive mother and father can not present breast milk to their infants.

Sadly, 5 of the infants handed away within the NICU, however one little woman was nonetheless holding on. Heartbreakingly, her adoptive mother and father have been advised to carry her one final time as a result of she wasn’t anticipated to make it by means of the night time. I occurred to see a mother that I knew on the clinic; I knew she was nursing a child, and as a medical intern I simply went up and requested her if she could be prepared to provide us a few of her breast milk to avoid wasting a dying little one? After all she stated sure. We fed the child this breast milk slowly by means of the night time, and I’m delighted to say that she not solely pulled by means of, this little one is eight or 9 years previous at the moment.

Although breast milk is greatest for NICU infants, a 2020 CDC report stated that 13% of U.S. hospital NICUs don’t have shares of donated breast milk. Clearly that is an fairness problem as breast milk is required to provide each sick little one the most effective probability of well being and survival.

Medgadget: Please give us an summary of the present approaches used to retailer and deploy donor breast milk in healthcare services. What are the restrictions of those procedures?

Dr. Langer: The way in which storing and deploying donated human milk works in healthcare services at the moment is that first, moms nursing infants who pump extra breast milk than they want can undergo a screening course of that enables them to convey their additional milk to the NICU. They often pack the milk in a cooler with ice packs, (assuming they’ve the time and the sources to make the journey!)

Neonatal intensive care models (NICUs) retailer this donated breast milk in giant freezers, ideally for not more than six to 12 months based on CDC tips. When it’s time to feed the infants, the donated breast milk is rigorously defrosted in small batches by NICU nurses, the place it may be refrigerated for as much as 48 hours.

In my expertise in a NICU, three out of 35 NICU nurses would spend their whole shift simply defrosting milk in order that the opposite nurses may do the feeding. They all the time needed to defrost extra milk than they wanted, and no matter a child didn’t drink was thrown away. It’s a waste of nurses’ time, in addition to human milk–each of that are extraordinarily useful.

Many individuals surprise, why is human milk so difficult to protect? Clearly we’re used to seeing cow’s milk offered on the grocery retailer, together with powdered milks and creamers. Extremely-high temperature (UHT) milk is shelf-stable and doesn’t must be refrigerated (if unopened). The issue is that whenever you deal with human milk in these identical methods, the important immunological proteins break down. You’re left with one thing that’s no higher than a really costly and hard-to-obtain child method, which isn’t the aim.

Medgadget: Please give us an summary of the BBy condenser expertise, and the way it works. How does the expertise present comfort for healthcare employees?

Dr. Langer: The BBy condenser is basically a twig dryer. The result’s similar to the cheese powder on Cheetos or cheese puffs. What occurs is you are taking the liquid milk, put it in a vacuum, after which use warmth to take away the water.

To keep away from “sterilizing” the milk (and to protect the vital bioactive parts that make breast milk what it’s), at BBy we use a laser and an algorithm to maintain the breast milk in what we name the “bio-retentive zone.” Mainly, the laser maps out the movement price and the temperature and the load of the product till it’s lowered to a shelf-stable powder.

This complete course of is extremely handy for hospital employees. From begin to end: each two weeks, BBy technicians choose up frozen donated breast milk from the hospital. We convey it to our regional services and convert it into human milk powder. We then ship the powder in aluminum packets again to the NICUs, the place the packets can keep on the shelf (with no refrigeration!) for as much as six months.

Feeding the powdered milk to a child can be quite simple; all that nurses need to do is combine the powder with a corresponding quantity of water.

Our personal estimates would recommend hospitals in the USA spend $12 billion yearly on acquiring and managing breast milk. A big portion of that’s labor and electrical energy.

The beauty of this innovation is that analysis reveals that in the end, infants who get fed breast milk will spend much less time within the NICU. It’s a win throughout.

Medgadget: How does the condensed breast milk examine with contemporary or frozen breast milk by way of its dietary worth and different bioactive parts?

Dr. Langer: BBy has executed in depth analysis to check our self-stable powder with each contemporary and frozen breast milk. Based mostly on our testing, BBy has a close to 1:1 retention of each IgA and IgG, the constructing blocks of cell immunity, in comparison with frozen or contemporary breast milk. Which means BBy’s powdered breast milk is ready to present all the identical advantages as breast milk in its different types.

Medgadget: How do you display donor milk to detect pathogens and guarantee security?

Dr. Langer: It’s true that donated breast milk obtained from the hospital is pre-screened and regarded secure, nevertheless it was crucial that our workforce additionally confirm that no infections or contaminants have been current within the milk that we condensed.

Our condensing course of has been confirmed to denature viral infections reminiscent of hepatitis, COVID-19 and HIV amongst others.

With a purpose to detect pathogens and guarantee security, we carried out a number of checks on our milk product. For a really particular instance, considered one of our checks was to search for hemolytic exercise (or the destruction of crimson blood cells) signifying the presence of an an infection. In a tradition medium wealthy with erythrocytes (crimson blood cells), we decided that not one of the lactic acid micro organism from the human milk introduced hemolysis (crimson blood cells being destroyed).

For anybody thinking about studying extra about this research, you may learn our revealed outcomes on the NIH web site, “In vivo evaluation and characterization of lactic acid micro organism with probiotic profile remoted from human milk powder,” Nutr Hosp. 2021 Feb 23;38(1):152-160. doi: 10.20960/nh.03335.

Different checks we’ve carried out embrace lactoferrin checks, fatty acid retention checks, and in vivo research in mice, all suggesting that the milk we offer is secure.

Medgadget: The place is the expertise in use at current? Do you plan to market the condensed breast milk alone, or additionally the condenser expertise?

Dr. Langer: Right this moment, BBy has partnered with 17 totally different hospitals, together with giant analysis hospitals in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Texas. We plan to increase our companies to much more regional places sooner or later.

One different thought we’re engaged on is a self-service kiosk that might allow mother and father to course of their very own breast milk to powder for simpler storage. Few households have the freezer area at dwelling to retailer giant portions of breast milk, and this may make feedings a lot simpler for everybody concerned.

Different tasks are within the works as properly, the aim being to offer entry to breast milk to as many infants as we probably can.

Hyperlink: BBy homepage…