Health care researchers unveiled several findings in early 2015.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Researchers have discovered new ways of helping patients avoid arrhythmias after heart attacks, sequencing a genome and simplifying the data-collection process.
The Portland Business Journal reported on Oregon Health & Science University’s study describing a new way to avoid the risky arrhythmias that sometimes follow a heart attack.
“Our study initially sought a therapy that would stimulate nerve regeneration after a heart attack,” said Beth Habecker, senior author of the study and a professor of physiology and pharmacology in the OHSU School of Medicine. ” It was a surprising and thrilling discovery that not only could this regeneration be achieved through both genetic and pharmaceutical approaches, but that it also decreases the heart’s susceptibility to arrhythmias.”
Habecker led the research team that examined why nerves were excluded from cardiac scars after heart attacks. Co-investigator Ryan Gardner found that factors preventing nerve regrowth after spinal cord injuries were also present in the heart.
With help from a $900,000 grant from M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, OHSU has sped up the process of sequencing genomes.
PBJ reported on the new sequencer that is twice as powerful as older technology.
“It’s a big upgrade to our sequencing capabilities,” [principal researcher Paul] Spellman said.
The grant was awarded last fall, but the equipment was installed just last week in Spellman’s lab, located on the sixth floor of the Collaborative Life Sciences Building. He said the equipment will help to relieve a 12-week sequencing backlog. All in all, the improvements will allow the lab to quadruple its genomic sequencing capabilities. It will also allow the process to shrink in time from two weeks to a single day (27 hours, to be exact).
On Thursday at the Design Museum Portland’s UNITE series, leaders from Intel, OHSU and Modern Edge discussed ways to improve health-care data collection.
PBJ reported on the challenges and findings of that discussion:
The discussion revolved around not only what kinds of health data will be collected in the future, but what happens to it.
“The challenge is what do we do with that all that information?” Vuckovic said. “We haven’t begun to understand how they’re actionable. How do you integrate all these data?”
