In the News…
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Staying Off the Beating Track:
Science features Penn researchers investigation into source of atrial fibrillation
October 30, 2009
While studying how the heart is formed, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine serendipitously found a novel cellular source of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common type of abnormal heart beat.
Researchers have identified a population of cells that are like skin pigment-producing cells (melanocytes) located in the atria of the heart and pulmonary veins of mice and humans, uncovering evidence in mice that the cells contribute to atrial fibrillation.
The finding may lead to a more precise way to treat AF, with reduced side effects.
The Penn scientists describe an unusual cell type whose dysfunction can initiate atrial arrhythmia, at least in mice.
These cells, referred to as cardiac melanocytes because they express the melanin synthetic enzyme dopachrome tautomerase (DCT),
reside in regions associated with atrial arrhythmia (for instance, in the pulmonary veins and atria) and in culture, display action potentials resembling those of atrial myocytes.
Further study, the scientists said, showed DCT-expressing cells in the mouse heart were distinct from both heart muscle cells and skin melanocytes,
although they could conduct electrical currents that are important for coordinated contraction of the heart.
Read the Penn Medicine news release »
Read the Science - Editor’s Choice feature »
Review the research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation »
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Penn Scientists Receive $16.7M NHLBI Award for Stem Cell Research
October 7, 2009
Two Penn researchers, along with scientists from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, have been awarded $16.7 million for collaborative stem cell research projects.
Edward Morrisey, PhD, Scientific Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and
Mortimer Poncz, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
received the funding from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (NHLBI) as part of a $170 million effort to create the
NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium,
which will bring together researchers from the heart, lung, blood, and technology research fields.
Poncz and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle (Dr. Beverly Torok-Storb, Ph.D.) will study the specialization of blood-forming cell lines,
develop molecular interventions that will drive the formation of blood cells toward desired lines, and establish new, functional platelets that potentially may be used for the targeted delivery of bioactive proteins.
Morrisey and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Dr. Irwin Bernstein, M.D.) endeavor to determine how certain signaling pathways -
ordered sequences of biochemical reactions inside cells - affect cardiac and blood-forming cell development and cardiac regeneration and repair.
The team will also study whether these pathways may be harnessed for therapeutic applications.
NHLBI press release »
Penn Medicine press release »
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center press release »
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Penn Presbyterian’s Next Generation Hybrid OR / Catheterization Lab
September 15, 2009
When Wilson Szeto, MD, of Cardiovascular Surgery, and
William Matthai, Jr., MD, of Cardiovascular Medicine, started developing a
vision for the new, state-of-the-art hybrid operating room/catheterization lab at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (PPMC), they may not have envisioned how this single space could
bring two traditionally separate specialties - cardiothoracic (CT) surgery and interventional cardiology - together.
"A patient with aortic stenosis and stenosis in the right coronary artery would traditionally need a full sternotomy, with a large incision,
to do both the bypass and replace the valve," Matthai said. "In one sitting in the hybrid OR, we can now perform a minimally invasive aortic
valve replacement and an angioplasty with a drug eluding stent - a smaller operation with a faster recovery and comparable clinical outcome."
Download Penn Medicine System News - see page 6 »
Visit Penn Cardiac Care at PPMC »
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Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Works, But Is It Cost Effective?
Wall Street Journal Health Blog Features Comments by Penn’s Dr. Mariell Jessup
September 1, 2009
Boston Scientific showed that its $30,000 devices that slow heart deterioration, called cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators,
produced clinical benefit in a 1,820-patient clinical trial, according to results published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.
But an accompanying editorial in today’s NEJM asks whether expanded CRT use in patients with heart failure is cost effective.
Mariell Jessup, MD, Medical Director of the Penn Heart and Vascular Center,
points out that despite evidence that patients with certain types of heart failure benefit from CRT, at least 30% of patients who are selected for therapy don’t benefit from CRT.
In the MADIT-CRT trial, "12 patients would need to be treated to prevent a single heart-failure event," she writes in the editorial.
Review the New England Journal of Medicine article »
Read Dr. Jessup’s New England Journal of Medicine editorial »
Meet CVI Member Mariell Jessup, MD »
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How to Make a Lung:
Cell-Regeneration Molecules Essential Signals for Early Lung Development
August 17, 2009
A tissue-repair-and-regeneration pathway in the human body is essential for the early lung to develop properly.
Genetically engineered mice fail to develop lungs when two molecules in this pathway, Wnt2 and Wnt2b, are knocked out.
"We wanted to know the answer to a seemingly simple question:
What is required to generate the lung in mammals?" asked senior author Edward Morrisey, PhD,
Scientific Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
He points out pulmonary and cardiac development is intricately connected:
"One thing coming out of these studies is that the lung and heart form together which is an important point to remember as pathways affecting one organ system can affect the other."
In fact, one of the Wnt knockout mice also has profound cardiovascular defects, he notes.
Read the Developmental Cell abstract »
Meet the study’s senior author, CVI Member Edward Morrisey »
Visit the Morrisey Lab »
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Penn Researchers Show Protein Unfolding is Key for Understanding Blood Clot Mechanics:
Implications for cardiovascular medicine, polymer and materials science
August 6, 2009
Fibrin is a contradictory polymer. On one hand, it forms a beneficial clot that stems blood loss while remaining pliable and flexible.
On the other hand, fibrin provides a dangerous scaffold for thrombi, clots that block blood vessels and cause tissue damage, leading to cardiovascular diseases like heart attack and ischemic stroke.
Understanding blood clot mechanics could help in the design of new treatments not only to prevent or remove clots that cause heart attacks and strokes
but also to enhance clotting in people with bleeding disorders. A team of Penn researchers reveals how the process of protein unfolding allows fibrin to maintain its remarkable and contradictory characteristics
this week in Science »
Read the Science abstract »
Meet the study’s senior author, CVI Member John Weisel »
Visit the NPR Health Blog »
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Penn Awarded $2 Million to Create Cardiac Myogenesis Research Center:
Philadelphia Business Journal features grant award from American Heart Association
August 4, 2009
The American Heart Association has awarded funding for three research centers to study the generation of cardiac muscle cells.
Centers will conduct studies to determine how regeneration of those cells can improve outcomes for heart attack and heart failure patients.
A number of basic science research projects will target cardiac myocytes, or heart cell muscles, to learn more about how those cells biologically develop, integrate and work.
Penn investigators from the Cardiovascular Institute, the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology share credit for the award.
"Cardiomyocyte Renewal" - review the abstract in the New England Journal of Medicine »
Visit the Penn CVI’s Molecular Cardiology Research Center »
Read the Penn Medicine News Release »
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Cost-Effectiveness of Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest:
AHA features Penn study on cost-saving benefits of cooling cardiac arrest survivors
August 4, 2009
Cooling unconscious cardiac arrest survivors can increase survival and has a cost effectiveness comparable to other widely accepted treatments in modern health care,
Penn researchers report in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest – in which the heart stops effectively pumping blood through the body – annually occurs in about 300,000 adults in the United States.
"Therapeutic hypothermia is the only post-resuscitation therapy shown to improve both survival and reduce disability after cardiac arrest," said lead author Raina M. Merchant, M.D., M.S.,
a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and emergency medicine physician at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Hypothermia Training Institute, Oct. 29-30, 2009 / Penn Center for Resuscitation Science »
Read "Freezing the Heart to Save the Life" in Popular Science »
Review the AHA News Release »
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July 16, 2009
Penn’s Dr. Thomas Cappola to Receive Nation’s Top Early-Career Award for Scientists:
Award Supports Groundbreaking Translational Heart Failure Research
Read the White House Award Announcement »
More about Dr. Cappola’s NHLBI-funded research » |
June 15, 2009
Study Shows Red Yeast Rice Helps Reduce Cholesterol: ABC World News cites Penn’s Dr. Daniel Rader
Download the study (PDF) »
Meet the study’s co-author, CVI Member Dr. Daniel Rader » |
April 24, 2009
Penn Scientists Discover New Target for Maintaining Healthy Blood Pressure |
March 25, 2009
Updated Heart Failure Guidelines:
Penn’s Dr. Mariell Jessup Chairs American Heart Association Guidelines Writing Group
Review AHA’s "Get With The Guidelines" »
Meet Dr. Mariell Jessup » |
February 25, 2009
Big-Hearted Fish Reveals Genetic Underpinnings of Cardiovascular Condition:
Penn CVI’s Kahn Lab unlocks the mystery of a puzzling human disease
Read more in Nature Medicine »
Visit the Kahn Lab » |
February 19, 2009
Could Genetics Improve Warfarin Dosing? New Research Says Yes:
Penn to serve as the National Clinical Trial Coordinating Center
Clarification of Optimal Anticoagulation Through Genetics (COAG) Network »
Read more in the New England Journal of Medicine » |
February 1, 2009
HUP Electrophysiology Program featured in U.S. News and World Report:
World Class Care for the Most Complex Heart Rhythm Disorders ( PDF ) |
January 27, 2009
Freezing the Heart to Save the Life:
Popular Science Magazine profiles Penn’s Cardiovascular Division and Emergency Medicine Department
How a Cold Heart Can Save Your Brain - Popular Science Diagram » |
January 14, 2009
A Device to Avert Strokes Lacks Proof That It Works:
Penn CVI Member Dr. Scott Kasner quoted in NY Times article |
January 9, 2009
Chances of Surviving Cardiac Arrest Depend on Where Patients are Treated:
Penn study shows need to standardize post-arrest care |
January 7, 2009
New Heart Valves Without Open Surgery: PARNTER Trial at Penn featured on 6 ABC News Health Check
About the PARTNER Trial at Penn »
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NEWS OFFICER
Holly Auer
Media Relations, Penn Medicine
(215) 349-5659 |
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