A machine that revives non-beating donor hearts is enabling more transplants.
George Martin’s heart began failing in 2012, after he caught the swine flu. The 46-year-old Lockheed Martin engineer went on the heart transplant list in 2018 and came close to getting a heart twice only to learn in both instances the organs weren’t viable. Martin finally got his heart transplant at AdventHealth in Orlando last summer through a procedure known as “donation after circulatory death,” or DCD.
Until recently, hearts used for transplantation have been limited to those from donors who are brain dead but whose hearts were still beating at the moment of death. Transplanting hearts from patients who died of circulatory death, however, was considered too risky because of potential damage to the heart muscle from a lack of blood perfusion and oxygenation. But over the past five years, doctors in the United Kingdom and Australia have successfully been transplanting hearts following circulat
Honor Roll
The pandemic-fueled shift to online college learning proved a boon to Boca Raton-based Honorlock, an online test proctor founded by two Florida Atlantic University graduates.
Honorlock last year placed No. 236 on Inc.’s fast-grower list with 1,860% three-year growth. It raised $11.5 million in March as it plans to add to its 80 employees, further expand in the domestic market and develop the corporate and international market. Along with FAU and FIU, the company has UF and other Florida institutions as clients among several hundred nationally.
It’s led by CEO Michael Hemlepp, an investor who bought in along with Boca investor Dan Cane, who before co-founding Modernizing Medicine founded ed tech companies Blackboard and CourseInfo.
The effects of coronavirus on the heart aren’t fully known.
Along with all the other unknowns about the coronavirus is whether it has long-term effects on the heart.
Dr. Jeffrey Goldberger, a cardiologist and chief of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, says many COVID-19 survivors even those who experienced mild or no symptoms have ongoing heart inflammation as a result of their infections. Complications may include arrhythmia or heart failure.
“We don’t know for sure how this is going to heal. Everything about this virus is sort of new,” Goldberger says. “In five years, are we going to be seeing people who had COVID and now have some lingering scarring in their heart and are at risk for arrhythmia? It’s possible.”
Thursday s Daily Pulse | 2/11/2021
White House looks at domestic travel restrictions as COVID mutation surges in Florida
The Biden administration is considering whether to impose domestic travel restrictions, including on Florida, fearful that coronavirus mutations are threatening to reverse hard-fought progress on the pandemic. Outbreaks of the new variants including a highly contagious one first identified in the United Kingdom, as well as others from South Africa and Brazil that scientists worry can evade existing vaccines have lent urgency to a review of potential travel restrictions within the United States, one federal official said. [Source: Miami Herald]
A pandemic plus: Florida suicides plummeted. Experts worry it won’t last
Tuesday s Afternoon Update | 2/9/2021 Smart Machines: AI technology s impact on Florida s business sectors
AI can’t replace humans, but the technology is making inroads in more and more business sectors. The leaps forward have been made possible by powerful computer processing engines and advances in machine learning techniques. Computers with enough horsepower can crunch large data sets and use a series of algorithms to extract patterns and glean insights from that information. More from Florida Trend.
Buccaneers’ Super Bowl win fills sails of Tampa Bay businesses
During the build-up to this year’s National Football League championship at Raymond James Stadium, local business owners had feared the worst about what a pandemic Super Bowl might cost them. But as jubilant Bucs fans hit the streets before and after the team’s 31-9 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the picture looked and certainly felt a lot rosier. More from the Tampa Bay Times.