iBiology Lecture Traces Surfactant Discovery and the Fight Against Neonatal Respiratory Distress

An iBiology Science Stories lecture traces the discovery of pulmonary surfactant and its role in neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Decades ago, mortality among premature infants with RDS exceeded 90%; research showed that a deficiency of surfactant, a protein-lipid complex, was the core cause. Replacement therapy, developed through physiological measurements, animal and clinical trials to FDA approval, cut neonatal intensive care mortality to under 5%, with surfactant becoming routine care roughly 40 years after the field began.