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When D. Charles Esmon began studying activated protein C in the 1970s, he never imagined his work would lead to a pair of life-saving drugs.

“Back then, we didn’t even know what activated protein C did in the body,” says the OMRF researcher. “Our goal was to figure it out.”

Figure it out he did. Indeed, Esmon’s research on the naturally occurring protein helped create two FDA-approved drugs: one for children suffering from life-threatening protein C deficiencies and another for a blood infection that kills more than 200,000 Americans each year.

And now, working with collaborators around the globe, Esmon is exploring a host of new disease applications for activated protein C.

One of the diseases in Esmon's crosshairs is diabetes, which affects an estimated 23 million Americans and is the leading cause of foot and lower-limb amputations in the U.S.

“What we found with sepsis is that activated protein C was protective in situations where you had inflammation, vascular injury and organ damage as part of the disease process,” says Esmon. “So now we’re looking at conditions like diabetes, where blocking inflammatory response and coagulation and protecting organs could be beneficial.”

Promising results for the prevention of kidney damage in diabetic mice were published in 2008 in the journal Nature Medicine. “If activated protein C has broader implications for people suffering from diabetes and other illnesses,” says Esmon, “that would be wonderful.”