Alisha Wainwright

First discovered in 1960s Japan, it took five decades for the drug to be used for its original purpose, preventing postpartum hemorrhage, which is still one of the leading causes of maternal deaths worldwide.

Since the early 2010s, a series of trials by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have been exploring how it can be used to save women's lives.

And they have made life-changing discoveries.

But their path hasn't always run smooth.

This episode, we are diving into the incredible story of the women trials with Halima Shaker-Still, one of the lead investigators across the full women research portfolio.

I'm Alicia Wainwright.

This is When Science Finds a Way, a podcast about the science changing the world.

Okay, let's meet Halima.

I'm so excited to have this conversation.

I have a lot of questions on deck, but firstly, I just want to ask if you can say your name and what you do.

Can you tell me what inspired you to get involved in the women trials?

Wow.

So this is around 2010 where tranexamic acid was not a new drug.

I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about how it was discovered and what it was initially used for.

Wow.

That's, that's a lot to take in only because 50 years is such a long time to have so many women dying of postpartum hemorrhage.

I wonder if you could just briefly explain what postpartum hemorrhage is.

Let's move forward to 2010 when the women trial first began.

I wonder if you can talk us through the scale of the trial and what your focus was on.

If a hospital experienced, like, for example, in Nigeria, when you bore witness to this woman who died of postpartum hemorrhage, what was the standard protocol at the time?