Tag Archives: veins

Getting to the heart of disease

Scientist works toward molecular therapies for cardiovascular diseases

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, to Jewish parents before the fall of the Soviet Union, Michael Simons, M.D., says a medical career was “sort of a default.” Anti-Semitism barred Jews from many scientific pursuits, so his parents, both doctors, encouraged his interest in medicine as the basis for a strong natural science education.

Simons’ family immigrated to Boston in 1978. Simons had begun a 6-year medical program immediately after high school in Russia, so he was admitted to Boston University School of Medicine as a third-year student, but he chose instead to start anew, as an undergraduate. “I thought, if I continue in a medical program, I’ll forever have an inadequate undergraduate education,” he says, speaking with a mild accent and an understated intensity. (more…)

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Curiosity Mars Rover Sees Trend in Water Presence

THE WOODLANDS, Texas – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has seen evidence of water-bearing minerals in rocks near where it had already found clay minerals inside a drilled rock.

Last week, the rover’s science team announced that analysis of powder from a drilled mudstone rock on Mars indicates past environmental conditions that were favorable for microbial life. Additional findings presented on March 18 at a news briefing at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, suggest those conditions extended beyond the site of the drilling. (more…)

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NASA Mars Rover Preparing to Drill into First Martian Rock

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is driving toward a flat rock with pale veins that may hold clues to a wet history on the Red Planet. If the rock meets rover engineers’ approval when Curiosity rolls up to it in coming days, it will become the first to be drilled for a sample during the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The size of a car, Curiosity is inside Mars’ Gale Crater investigating whether the planet ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life. Curiosity landed in the crater five months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. (more…)

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Filters Do Not Lower Mortality Rate in Most Embolism Cases

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A filter used to block clots from passing from the veins in the legs to the arteries of the lung does not improve mortality rates for most patients suffering a pulmonary embolism. However, if a patient is unstable – in shock or requires a ventilator – filters can save lives.

Furthermore, for unstable patients with a pulmonary embolism, it is crucial they receive clot-dissolving medications known as thrombolytic therapy.

The findings come from a set of three research articles on pulmonary embolism treatment published by Michigan State University’s Paul Stein in the May edition of the American Journal of Medicine. The findings are based on a study of more than two million patients suffering from the sometimes deadly clots that travel to the lungs and block arteries. (more…)

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