Tag: Cardiac Bioelectricity and Arrhythmia Center

Compound may prevent risk of a form of arrhythmia from common medications (Links to an external site)

Jianmin Cui, KCNQ1

CBAC Jianmin Cui leads a multi-institutional team to make this discovery. Dozens of commonly used drugs, including antibiotics, antinausea and anticancer medications, have a potential side effect of lengthening the electrical event that triggers contraction, creating an irregular heartbeat, or cardiac arrhythmia called acquired Long QT syndrome. While safe in their current dosages, some of these drugs may have a more therapeutic benefit at higher doses, but are limited by the risk of arrhythmia.

WashU-developed holograms help physicians during cardiac procedure (Links to an external site)

Jennifer Silva, Holographic Display

Holographic display improves physician accuracy when treating irregular heartbeat. CBAC members, Jennifer N. Avari Silva, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, and Jonathan Silva, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, co-led a team that tested a Microsoft HoloLens headset with custom software during cardiac ablation procedures on patients at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Skandy Awards Honors Innovation and Entrepreneurship at WashU (Links to an external site)

Skandy Awards

On Wednesday, April 10, 2019, the Skandalaris Center hosted the second annual Skandy Awards. The awards welcomed of the WashU and St. Louis community to celebrate the innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial achievements of Washington University students, faculty and alumni.

CBAC members, Drs. Phillip Cuculich and Jennifer Silva were awarded the Skandalaris Center Awards in Innovation.

Woodard named Wilson Professor of Radiology (Links to an external site)

Pamela Woodard

Recognized for accomplishments in cardiovascular imaging and research

Pamela K. Woodard, MD, CBAC member and professor of radiology recognized for her expertise in cardiothoracic radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named the inaugural Hugh Monroe Wilson Professor of Radiology.

Rudy named to National Academy of Inventors (Links to an external site)

Yoram Rudy

CBAC Director, Yoram Rudy, along with a faculty member from the School of Medicine, were named to the National Academy of Inventors.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows Program highlights inventors who demonstrate a “prolific spirit of innovation.”

Washington People: Jennifer Silva (Links to an external site)

Jennifer Silva

CBAC member Jennifer Silva, MD, a pediatric electrophysiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, treats children with abnormal heart rhythms. She has co-founded a startup company that is developing technology intended to help doctors see real-time 3D holograms of the heart during procedures to fix erratic heart rhythms.

Road Map to the Heart (Links to an external site)

Two graduate students turned entrepreneurs transformed a medical breakthrough from a lab project into a clinical tool. Years later, Medtronic bought the company they co-founded for $93 million.

Martin Arthur ‘Finally Ready to Graduate’ (Links to an external site)

Martin Arthur

CBAC member, Arthur’s long-standing place in the Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering will come to an end later this year when he leaves the university to continue working on his health care startup, ATM Cardiac Diagnostics LLC, which he formed along with fellow CBAC member Jason Trobaugh, professor of the practice in electrical & systems engineering, and Scott Marrus, MD, former CBAC member and a Washington University cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

An ‘unprecedented look’ into the protein behind hypertension, epilepsy and other conditions (Links to an external site)

Jianmin Cui

After new technology recently revealed the structure of the protein, the lab of CBAC member Jianmin Cui, professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, will collaborate with two others to take an unprecedented look into its molecular mechanisms potentially leading to the development of new drugs for these and other conditions.

Washington People: Patrick Jay (Links to an external site)

Patrick Jay, Pediatric Cardiology

Pediatric cardiologist seeks keys to preventing congenital heart defects.

This article features CBAC alumnus Patrick Jay, who was an associate professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A sodium surprise (Links to an external site)

Jonathan Silva, Jeanne Nerbonne, Sodium Ion Channels

Engineers find unexpected results during cardiac research. This article features CBAC members Jonathan Silva, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Jeanne Nerbonne, Alumni Endowed Professor of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research at Washington University’s School of Medicine.

Silva, Nerbonne and Zoltan Varga from the University of Debrecen in Hungary worked with collaborators to take a closer look at the sodium ion channels responsible for creating the electrical signal that makes the heartbeat.They found that certain sodium subunits attached to the main protein in different places. It was an unexpected result that could lead to better drug delivery and efficacy for patients with heart arrhythmia.

Researchers create first 3-D mathematical model of uterine contractions (Links to an external site)

uterine contractions, Mathematical Modelling

CBAC member Arye Nehorai, the Eugene and Martha Lohman Professor of Electrical Engineering and chair of the Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and his team have developed the first 3-D multiscale mathematical model of the electrophysiology of a woman’s contractions as they begin from a single cell to the myometrium, or uterine tissue, into the uterus

How a Frankenstein Prototype Ended Up Being Worth $93M (Links to an external site)

CardioInsight ECVUE

While working a Case Western Reserve University, CBAC Director Yoram Rudy, PhD had the idea for a game-changing cardiac monitoring device–a vest filled with more than 200 sensors that could detect the heart’s electrical activity. While standard 12-lead EKGs had become the gold standard for detecting many heart problems, EKGs still can miss cardiac problems because they only probe electrical potential at a limited number of points on the body.

CBAC 10th Anniversary Symposium

CBAC Symposium, Cardiac Arrhythmias Symposium

On Friday, August 28th, the Cardiac Bioelectricity & Arrhythmia Center (CBAC) of Washington University held a one-day symposium celebrating its 10th anniversary. The symposium addressed basic research and clinical issues in the field of cardiac arrhythmias. Faculty included speakers from Washington University and guests from all around the world.

New insights in mechanisms of human cardiac arrhythmias (Links to an external site)

Yoram Rudy

Medtronic acquired CardioInsight Technologies, developer of a clinical noninvasive imaging system, called ECGI, for noninvasive mapping of the electrical activity of the heart and cardiac arrhythmias. The ECGI concept and methodology were developed in Professor Yoram Rudy’s laboratory with support from the NIH – National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

NIH grant to support study of heart’s inner mechanisms (Links to an external site)

Jianmin Cui

Findings could lead to better treatment for cardiac arrhythmia and long QT syndrome.CBAC member Jianmin Cui, PhD, has received a nearly $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the molecular bases for the function of potassium channels vital for the heart, brain, inner ear and other tissues.

Research opens opportunities to develop targeted drug therapy for cardiac arrhythmia (Links to an external site)

Jianmin Cui

CBAC members Jianmin Cui, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering, and Mark Zaydman, fifth-year MD/PhD student, and a team of biomedical engineers has discovered that for one important channel in the heart, called KCNQ1, the membrane voltage not only causes the channel to open, but also determines the properties of the electrical signals, acting as both conductor and composer rather than only conductor as previously believed.

Wickline receives chancellor’s innovation award (Links to an external site)

Samuel Wickline, Chancellors Award

CBAC alumnus Samuel A. Wickline, MD, received the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. Wickline, the James R. Hornsby Family Professor of Biomedical Sciences, was presented with the honor at the Faculty Achievement Awards ceremony

Gel implant might help fight heart failure (Links to an external site)

Injecting beads of gel into the wall of a still-beating heart has the potential to improve the health of patients with severe heart failure, according to a new study by CBAC member Douglas L. Mann, MD, the Tobias and Hortense Lewin Professor of Medicine and cardiologist-in-chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Mann presented the study’s findings at the American Heart Association (AHA) annual meeting in Chicago.

CBAC Electrocardiographic Imaging (ECGI) Retreat

CBAC ECGI Retreat

The CBAC Retreat was a full day of exciting lectures, informal talks and dialogue, and presentations from various CBAC faculty members whose interests range in both research and clinical studies.