Shrinking old hearts

Engineering cardiac muscle: new ways to refurbish old hearts?

Myocardial infarction leads to irreversible cell loss and scar formation, which result in impaired cardiac function, cardiac hypertrophy and, eventually, heart failure. As the intrinsic regenerative capacity of the human heart is very limited, organ transplantation or ventricular assist devices remain the only end-stage therapy options to date. For at least two decades, alternative therapeutic ...

New Hearts for Old : The Mechanical Option 1

IBBON, working at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, developed the heart-lung machine and achieved the first successful clinical use in 1953. (1) In less than fifty years, heart surgery has evolved to a point at which the cardiac surgeon can repair a large variety of congenital lesions, and where a series of spare parts is available, including artificial blood vessels, valves, and pacem...

Hearts Beating for Liberty: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest

Chymase-dependent production of angiotensin II: an old enzyme in old hearts.

Age-dependent alteration of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and generation of angiotensin II (Ang II) are well documented. By contrast, RAS-independent generation of Ang II in aging and its responses to exercise have not been explored. To this end, we examined the effects of chymase, a secretory serine protease, on the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-independent conversion of Ang I to An...

Shrinking spines

Text by Hema Bashyam [email protected] Skin-based immunity W hen skin cells are hit by a blast of UV light, they instruct dendritic cells (DCs) to suppress immunity system-wide, say Karin Loser, Stefan Beissert (University of Münster, Münster, Germany), and colleagues. UV has the unusual ability to cause immunosuppression by recruiting T regulatory cells (T regs). UV has thus been used t...