OHSU School of Medicine Paper of the Month: Seeking a balance between blood clotting and uncontrolled bleeding

Science Translational MedicineThis month's paper, featured by the OHSU School of Medicine, was published in the June 23 edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine, and is titled “Safety and antithrombotic efficacy of moderate platelet count reduction by thrombopoietin inhibition in primates.” 

Seventh World Congress on Developmental Origins of Health & Disease

 

The OHSU Heart Research Center is pleased to be part of the organizing committee for the Seventh World Congress on Developmental Origins of Health & Disease, which will take place September 18-21, 2011 in Portland, Oregon, USA. 

You can learn more about this Congress at www.dohad2011.org/.

Online Heart Health Lecture Videos

 

The Heart Research CenterHeart disease is still the Number 1 killer of men and women in America. Education is the best defense. OHSU practices smart healthcare by providing free lectures and screenings to the community. Video from these lectures is now available!  Just open this article to click on links to our lectures.

Children Born to Mothers With Preeclampsia Are at Increased Risk for Stroke Later in Life

Study suggests preeclampsia damages blood vessels in the baby's brain.

It’s been shown that women who develop preeclampsia are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life, and that their babies have higher blood pressure during childhood. What hasn’t been known are the long-term health risks for these children. A recent study by Oregon Health & Science University researchers found these children are at increased risk for stroke later in life. 

Preeclampsia in pregnancy is characterized by high blood pressure and protein in the urine. Without proper care, the condition can lead to serious complications, including death, for both mother and baby.   

Kent Thornburg, Ph.D., and David Barker, M.D., Ph.D., both of the OHSU Heart Research Center, collaborated with Eero Kajantie, M.D., at the National Public Health Institute in Finland and reviewed the maternity records of 6,410 singleton babies born in Helsinki between 1934 and 1944. They found 284 of the pregnancies were complicated by preeclampsia and another 1,592 were complicated by gestational hypertension. 

TRANSLATING HEART RESEARCH INTO PATIENT TREATMENT

 
Dr. Jack Kron exemplifies the Heart Research Center’s focus on translating research into patient care.
 
Dr. Kron, professor of Medicine, director of the Electrophysiology Laboratory, and a member of the Heart Research Center, specializes in electrophysiology and clinical arrhythmia treatment (irregular heartbeat).
 
Millions of people experience irregular heartbeat during their lives. For most of us, these experiences are harmless and not indicative of heart disease. 
 
For some of us, however, such rhythm disturbances can be serious and sometimes fatal. And at times, due to underlying heart disease, the possibility of arrhythmia and associated risks is increased.

OHSU Researchers Identify Master Switch That Regulates Blood Pressure

PORTLAND, Ore. – A team of Oregon Health & Science University researchers studying a rare form of hypertension has identified the mechanism by which they believe a protein complex in the kidney operates as a master switch that regulates blood pressure, a finding that has broad implications for the treatment of more common forms of hypertension.  The team led by David H. Ellison, M.D. – whose findings are described in a paper being published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation – likens the switch to a rheostat that modulates the balance of salt and potassium in the kidney, thereby raising or lowering blood pressure.

Hip Size of Mothers Linked To Breast Cancer In Daughters (press release - October 9, 2007)

PORTLAND, Ore. - In a study of the maternity records of more than 6,000 women, David J.P. Barker, M.D., Ph.D., and Kent Thornburg, Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University discovered a strong correlation between the size and shape of a woman's hips and her daughter's risk of breast cancer. Wide, round hips, the researchers postulated, represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations in the mother, which increase her daughter's vulnerability to breast cancer.

Improving Communication Among Researchers

Thornburg with model of human heart

Several years ago, Dr. Kent Thornburg crossed paths with the OHSU chief of cardiac surgery who was on his way to an operation for a child with outflow obstruction to the right ventricle. (The right ventricle had to work terribly hard to pump blood through that vessel.) When the chief wondered out loud what happened to the heart muscle when this happens, Thornburg knew there was a problem with his organization. “There are people in my lab who are working on that problem,” he told his colleague. The chief had no idea.