Category Archives: Florida Stem Cells

CRYO-CELL International (OTCMKTS:CCEL) and Harsco (NYSE:HSC) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation and profitability.

Risk and Volatility

CRYO-CELL International has a beta of -0.25, meaning that its share price is 125% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Harsco has a beta of 2.27, meaning that its share price is 127% more volatile than the S&P 500.

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for CRYO-CELL International and Harsco, as provided by MarketBeat.

Harsco has a consensus price target of $26.67, indicating a potential upside of 277.18%. Given Harscos higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Harsco is more favorable than CRYO-CELL International.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

91.7% of Harsco shares are owned by institutional investors. 54.0% of CRYO-CELL International shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Harsco shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares CRYO-CELL International and Harscos net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares CRYO-CELL International and Harscos revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Harsco has higher revenue and earnings than CRYO-CELL International.

Summary

Harsco beats CRYO-CELL International on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

CRYO-CELL International Company Profile

Cryo-Cell International, Inc. engages in the cellular processing and cryogenic cellular storage with a focus on the collection and preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells for family use. It provides cord tissue service that stores a section of the umbilical cord tissue, a source of mesenchymal stem cells that are used in regenerative medicine to treat a range of conditions, including heart, kidney, ALS, wound healing, and auto-immune diseases. The company also manufactures and sells PrepaCyte CB processing system, a technology used to process umbilical cord blood stem cells. It stores approximately 500,000 cord blood and cord tissue specimens worldwide. The company markets its cord blood stem cell preservation services directly to expectant parents, as well as by distributing information through obstetricians, pediatricians, childbirth educators, certified nurse-midwives, and other related healthcare professionals. Cryo-Cell International, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Oldsmar, Florida.

Harsco Company Profile

Harsco Corporation provides industrial services and engineered products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Harsco Metals & Minerals, Harsco Industrial, and Harsco Rail. The Harsco Metals & Minerals segment provides on-site services of material logistics, product quality improvement, and resource recovery for iron, steel, and metals manufacturing; and value added environmental solutions for industrial co-products, as well as produces industrial abrasives and roofing granules. The Harsco Industrial segment manufactures and supplies custom-engineered and manufactured air-cooled heat exchangers for the natural gas, natural gas processing, and petrochemical industries; industrial grating products, such as metal bar grating configurations for industrial flooring, and safety and security applications in the energy, paper, chemical, refining, and processing industries. It also offers heat transfer products, such as boilers and water heaters for commercial and institutional applications; and high-security fencing products. The Harsco Rail segment designs and manufactures safety systems for transportation and industrial applications; and equipment, after-market parts, and services for the maintenance, repair, and construction of railway track. It serves private and government-owned railroads, and urban mass transit systems. Harsco Corporation was founded in 1853 and is headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

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Reviewing CRYO-CELL International (OTCMKTS:CCEL) and Harsco (OTCMKTS:HSC) - Redmond Register

Harsco (NYSE:HSC) and CRYO-CELL International (OTCMKTS:CCEL) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations and risk.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Harsco and CRYO-CELL Internationals top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Harsco and CRYO-CELL Internationals net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Risk & Volatility

Harsco has a beta of 2.27, meaning that its share price is 127% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CRYO-CELL International has a beta of -0.25, meaning that its share price is 125% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

92.2% of Harsco shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.3% of CRYO-CELL International shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of Harsco shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 54.0% of CRYO-CELL International shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Harsco and CRYO-CELL International, as reported by MarketBeat.

Harsco presently has a consensus target price of $26.67, indicating a potential upside of 325.99%. Given Harscos higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Harsco is more favorable than CRYO-CELL International.

Summary

Harsco beats CRYO-CELL International on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

Harsco Company Profile

Harsco Corporation provides industrial services and engineered products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Harsco Metals & Minerals, Harsco Industrial, and Harsco Rail. The Harsco Metals & Minerals segment provides on-site services of material logistics, product quality improvement, and resource recovery for iron, steel, and metals manufacturing; and value added environmental solutions for industrial co-products, as well as produces industrial abrasives and roofing granules. The Harsco Industrial segment manufactures and supplies custom-engineered and manufactured air-cooled heat exchangers for the natural gas, natural gas processing, and petrochemical industries; industrial grating products, such as metal bar grating configurations for industrial flooring, and safety and security applications in the energy, paper, chemical, refining, and processing industries. It also offers heat transfer products, such as boilers and water heaters for commercial and institutional applications; and high-security fencing products. The Harsco Rail segment designs and manufactures safety systems for transportation and industrial applications; and equipment, after-market parts, and services for the maintenance, repair, and construction of railway track. It serves private and government-owned railroads, and urban mass transit systems. Harsco Corporation was founded in 1853 and is headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

CRYO-CELL International Company Profile

Cryo-Cell International, Inc. engages in the cellular processing and cryogenic cellular storage with a focus on the collection and preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells for family use. It provides cord tissue service that stores a section of the umbilical cord tissue, a source of mesenchymal stem cells that are used in regenerative medicine to treat a range of conditions, including heart, kidney, ALS, wound healing, and auto-immune diseases. The company also manufactures and sells PrepaCyte CB processing system, a technology used to process umbilical cord blood stem cells. It stores approximately 500,000 cord blood and cord tissue specimens worldwide. The company markets its cord blood stem cell preservation services directly to expectant parents, as well as by distributing information through obstetricians, pediatricians, childbirth educators, certified nurse-midwives, and other related healthcare professionals. Cryo-Cell International, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Oldsmar, Florida.

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Head to Head Analysis: Harsco (NYSE:HSC) & CRYO-CELL International (NYSE:CCEL) - Redmond Register

Harsco (NYSE:HSC) and CRYO-CELL International (OTCMKTS:CCEL) are both small-cap industrial products companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership and profitability.

Profitability

This table compares Harsco and CRYO-CELL Internationals net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Harsco and CRYO-CELL International, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

Harsco presently has a consensus price target of $26.67, suggesting a potential upside of 231.26%. Given Harscos higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Harsco is more favorable than CRYO-CELL International.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

92.2% of Harsco shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.3% of CRYO-CELL International shares are held by institutional investors. 1.6% of Harsco shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 54.0% of CRYO-CELL International shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

Harsco has a beta of 2.26, indicating that its share price is 126% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CRYO-CELL International has a beta of -0.25, indicating that its share price is 125% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Harsco and CRYO-CELL Internationals revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Harsco has higher revenue and earnings than CRYO-CELL International.

Summary

Harsco beats CRYO-CELL International on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Harsco

Harsco Corporation provides industrial services and engineered products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Harsco Metals & Minerals, Harsco Industrial, and Harsco Rail. The Harsco Metals & Minerals segment provides on-site services of material logistics, product quality improvement, and resource recovery for iron, steel, and metals manufacturing; and value added environmental solutions for industrial co-products, as well as produces industrial abrasives and roofing granules. The Harsco Industrial segment manufactures and supplies custom-engineered and manufactured air-cooled heat exchangers for the natural gas, natural gas processing, and petrochemical industries; industrial grating products, such as metal bar grating configurations for industrial flooring, and safety and security applications in the energy, paper, chemical, refining, and processing industries. It also offers heat transfer products, such as boilers and water heaters for commercial and institutional applications; and high-security fencing products. The Harsco Rail segment designs and manufactures safety systems for transportation and industrial applications; and equipment, after-market parts, and services for the maintenance, repair, and construction of railway track. It serves private and government-owned railroads, and urban mass transit systems. Harsco Corporation was founded in 1853 and is headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

About CRYO-CELL International

Cryo-Cell International, Inc. engages in the cellular processing and cryogenic cellular storage with a focus on the collection and preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells for family use. It provides cord tissue service that stores a section of the umbilical cord tissue, a source of mesenchymal stem cells that are used in regenerative medicine to treat a range of conditions, including heart, kidney, ALS, wound healing, and auto-immune diseases. The company also manufactures and sells PrepaCyte CB processing system, a technology used to process umbilical cord blood stem cells. It stores approximately 500,000 cord blood and cord tissue specimens worldwide. The company markets its cord blood stem cell preservation services directly to expectant parents, as well as by distributing information through obstetricians, pediatricians, childbirth educators, certified nurse-midwives, and other related healthcare professionals. Cryo-Cell International, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Oldsmar, Florida.

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Reviewing Harsco (NYSE:HSC) and CRYO-CELL International (NYSE:CCEL) - Redmond Register

Nes-Ziona, Israel, Feb. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Enlivex Therapeutics Ltd. (Nasdaq: ENLV), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company, today announced that the company wasselected, for a scientific presentation of two posters: (i) Allocetra-OTS: Early Apoptotic Cells for Immune Homeostasis in Human Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) and for the Prevention of Graft Versus Host Disease (GvHD), and (ii) Apoptotic Cells Reprogram Resident Macrophages to Support Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T Cell Therapy Against Peritoneal Solid Tumor, at the Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings Conference of the ASTCT and CIBMTR (TCT), held on February 19-23, 2020, in Orlando, Florida.

Allocetra-OTS: Early Apoptotic Cells for Immune Homeostasis in Human Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) and for the Prevention of Graft Versus Host Disease (GvHD)

Results from preclinical and clinical studiesy suggested that a single infusion of donor early apoptotic cells (Allocetra) as prophylaxis for GvHD in myeloablative HSCT is safe and potentially effective and led to 0% (0/6) of acute high grade II-IV GvHD in the two higher dosages compared to 52% in matched historical control. Enlivex is planning to initiate a Phase 2/3 multi-center, open-label, 2-arm study (ENX-CL-01-002), in Israel and Germany, that will evaluate the efficacy and safety of Allocetra-OTS (140x106cells/kg) with or without anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) for the prevention of GvHD in subjects undergoing HLA-matched HSCT from an unrelated donor.

Apoptotic Cells Reprogram Resident Macrophages to Support Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T Cell Therapy Against Peritoneal Solid Tumor

Preclinical studies showed significantly increased duration of survival and overall survival for study subjects who were treated with the combination therapy, as compared to stand-alone solid tumor CAR-T therapy. The results of these preclinical studies showed that the mechanism of action significantly increased the anti-tumor macrophage population surrounding the human solid tumor microenvironment in the subjects who were treated with the combination therapy.

ALLOCETRATMby Enlivex was designed toprovide a novel immunotherapy mechanism of actionthat targets life-threatening clinical indications that are defined as unmet medical needs, includingprevention or treatment of complications associated with bone marrow transplantations (BMT) and/or hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCT); organ dysfunction and acute multiple organ failure associated with sepsis; and enablement of an effective treatment of solid tumors via immune checkpoint rebalancing.

ABOUT ENLIVEXEnlivex is a clinical stage immunotherapy company, developing an allogeneic drug pipeline for immune system rebalancing. Immune system rebalancing is critical for the treatment of life-threatening immune and inflammatory conditions which involve an out of control immune system (e.g. Cytokine Release Syndrome) and for which there are no approved treatments (unmet medical needs), as well as solid tumors immune-checkpoint rebalancing. For more information, visit http://www.enlivex.com.

ABOUT EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY ORGANIZATIONThe TCT | Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings of ASTCT and CIBMTR (TCT Meetings) are the combined annual meetings of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR).

Safe Harbor Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements, which may be identified by words such as expects, plans, projects, will, may, anticipates, believes, should, would, intends, estimates, suggests, has the potential to and other words of similar meaning, including statements regarding expected cash balances, market opportunitiesfor the results of current clinical studies and preclinical experiments, the effectiveness of, and market opportunitiesfor, ALLOCETRATMprograms, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may affect Enlivexs business and prospects, including the risks that Enlivex may not succeed in generating any revenues or developing any commercial products; that the products in development may fail, may not achieve the expected results or effectiveness and/or may not generate data that would support the approval or marketing of these products for the indications being studied or for other indications; that ongoing studies may not continue to show substantial or any activity; and other risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. The results of clinical trials in humans may produce results that differ significantly from the results of clinical and other trials in animals. The results of early-stage trials may differ significantly from the results of more developed, later-stage trials. The development of any products using the ALLOCETRATMproduct line could also be affected by a number of other factors, including unexpected safety, efficacy or manufacturing issues, additional time requirements for data analyses and decision making, the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation, the impact of competitive products and pricing and the impact of patents and other proprietary rights held by competitors and other third parties. In addition to the risk factors described above, investors should consider the economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors discussed in Enlivexs filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including under the heading Risk Factors contained in Enlivexs most recently filed Annual Report on Form 20-F. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date the statements were made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law.

ENLIVEX CONTACT: Shachar Shlosberger, CFO Enlivex Therapeutics, Ltd.shachar@enlivex-pharm.com

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Data On Enlivex's Allocetra-OTS Immunotherapy for Peritoneal Solid Tumors and for Prevention of GvHD Selected for Presentation at the Transplantation...

NEW YORK, Feb. 24, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mesoblast Limited (Nasdaq:MESO; ASX:MSB) today announced that aggregated results from 309 children treated with Ryoncil (remestemcel-L) were presented atthe American Society for Transplantation Cellular Therapy and the Center for International Blood & Bone Marrow Transplant Research (TCT) meeting in Orlando, Florida on February 22. The data showed that treatment with RYONCIL across three separate trials resulted inconsistent treatment responses and survival outcomesinchildren with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease (SR-aGVHD).

Key findings and conclusions were:

Mesoblast Chief Medical Officer Dr Fred Grossman said: These aggregated data from three studies demonstrate consistent efficacy and safety of RYONCIL in children suffering from steroid refractory acute graft versus host disease. If approved, RYONCIL has the potential to be an effective and safe therapy to improve survival outcomes in the most vulnerable population of children with severe forms of this disease who can have mortality rates as high as 90 percent.

In January, Mesoblast filed a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for RYONCIL for the treatment of children with steroid-refractory aGVHD. The Company has requested Priority Review of the BLA by the FDA under the product candidates existing Fast Track designation. If approved, RYONCIL is expected to be launched in the US in 2020.

About Acute GVHDAcute GVHD occurs in approximately 50% of patients who receive an allogeneic bone marrow transplant (BMT). Over 30,000 patients worldwide undergo an allogeneic BMT annually, primarily during treatment for blood cancers, and these numbers are increasing.1 In patients with the most severe form of acute GVHD (Grade C/D or III/IV) mortality is as high as 90% despite optimal institutional standard of care.2,3. There are currently no FDA-approved treatments in the US for children under 12 with SR-aGVHD.

About Ryoncil Mesoblasts lead product candidate, RYONCIL, is an investigational therapy comprising culture- expanded mesenchymal stem cells derived from the bone marrow of an unrelated donor. It is administered to patients in a series of intravenous infusions. RYONCIL is believed to have immunomodulatory properties to counteract the inflammatory processes that are implicated in SR- aGVHD by down-regulating the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, increasing production of anti-inflammatory cytokines, and enabling recruitment of naturally occurring anti-inflammatory cells to involved tissues.

References1. Niederwieser D, Baldomero H, Szer J. (2016) Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation activity worldwide in 2012 and a SWOT analysis of the Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group including the global survey.2. Westin, J., Saliba, RM., Lima, M. (2011) Steroid-refractory acute GVHD: predictors and outcomes. Advances in Hematology.3. Axt L, Naumann A, Toennies J (2019) Retrospective single center analysis of outcome, risk factors and therapy in steroid refractory graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplantation.

About MesoblastMesoblast Limited (Nasdaq: MESO; ASX: MSB) is a world leader in developing allogeneic (off-the-shelf) cellular medicines. The Company has leveraged its proprietary mesenchymal lineage cell therapy technology platforms to establish a broad portfolio of commercial products and late-stage product candidates. Mesoblasts proprietary manufacturing process yields industrial-scale, cryopreserved, off-the-shelf, cellular medicines. These cell therapies, with defined pharmaceutical release criteria, are planned to be readily available to patients worldwide.

Mesoblast has filed a Biologics License Application to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seek approval of its product candidate Ryoncil (remestemcel-L) for steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease (acute GvHD). Remestemcel-L is also being developed for other rare diseases. Mesoblast is completing Phase 3 trials for its rexlemestrocel product candidates for advanced heart failure and chronic low back pain. If approved, RYONCIL is expected to be launched in the United States in 2020 for pediatric steroid-refractory acute GVHD. Two products have been commercialized in Japan and Europe by Mesoblasts licensees, and the Company has established commercial partnerships in Europe and China for certain Phase 3 assets.

Mesoblast has locations in Australia, the United States and Singapore and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (MSB) and on the Nasdaq (MESO). For more information, please see http://www.mesoblast.com, LinkedIn: Mesoblast Limited and Twitter: @Mesoblast

Mesoblasts Forward-Looking StatementsThis announcement includes forward-looking statements that relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We make such forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and actual results may differ from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements, and the differences may be material and adverse. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the timing, progress and results of Mesoblasts preclinical and clinical studies; Mesoblasts ability to advance product candidates into, enroll and successfully complete, clinical studies; the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals; and the pricing and reimbursement of Mesoblasts product candidates, if approved. You should read this press release together with our risk factors, in our most recently filed reports with the SEC or on our website. Uncertainties and risks that may cause Mesoblasts actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those which may be expressed or implied by such statements, and accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligations to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Release authorized by the Chief Executive.

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Consistent Outcomes Using Ryoncil as First-Line Treatment or Salvage Therapy in 309 Children With Steroid-Refractory Acute GVHD - BioSpace

Houston, TX A variety of science investigations, along with supplies and equipment, launch to the International Space Station on the 20th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission.

The Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to leave Earth March 2nd from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its cargo includes research on particle foam manufacturing, water droplet formation, the human intestine and other cutting-edge investigations.

Airbus workers unpack the Bartolomeo platform at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for its launch to the International Space Station. The platform, manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space, hosts multiple external payloads in low-Earth orbit. (NASA)

The space station, now in its 20th year of continuous human presence, provides opportunities for research by government agencies, private industry, and academic and research institutions.

Such research supports Artemis, NASAs missions to the Moon and Mars, and leads to new technologies, medical treatments and products that improve life on Earth.

Particle foam molding is a manufacturing process that blows thousands of pellets into a mold where they fuse together. The shoe company Adidas uses this process to make performance midsoles, the layer between the sole of a shoe and the insole under your foot, for its products.

The BOOST Orbital Operations on Spheroid Tesellation (Adidas BOOST) investigation looks at how multiple types of pellets behave in this molding process. Using one type of pellet creates a foam with the same properties throughout the sole component. Using multiple pellet types can allow engineers to change mechanical properties and optimize shoe performance and comfort. Removing gravity from the process enables a closer look at pellet motion and location during the process.

Results of this investigation could demonstrate the benefits of microgravity research for manufacturing methods, contributing to increased commercial use of the space station. New processes for particle foam molding could benefit a variety of other industries, including packaging and cushioning materials.

The Bartolomeo facility, created by ESA (European Space Agency) and Airbus, attaches to the exterior of the European Columbus Module. Designed to provide new scientific opportunities on the outside of the space station for commercial and institutional users, the facility offers unobstructed views both toward Earth and into space.

Airbus is collaborating with the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs to offer UN Member States the opportunity to fly a payload on Bartolomeo. Developing countries are particularly encouraged to participate, and the mission is devoted to addressing the UNs Sustainable Development Goals. Bartolomeo is named for the younger brother of Christopher Columbus.

Droplet Formation Studies in Microgravity (Droplet Formation Study) evaluates water droplet formation and water flow of Delta Faucets H2Okinetic showerhead technology. Reduced flow rates in shower devices conserve water, but also can reduce their effectiveness.

That can cause people to take longer showers, undermining the goal of using less water. Gravitys full effects on the formation of water droplets are unknown, and research in microgravity could help improve the technology, creating better performance and improved user experience while conserving water and energy.

Insight gained from this investigation also has potential applications in various uses of fluids on spacecraft, from human consumption of liquids to waste management and use of fluids for cooling and as propellants.

Human intestine cells forming microvilli inside Emulates Intestine-Chip. (Emulate)

Organ-Chips as a Platform for Studying Effects of Space on Human Enteric Physiology (Gut on Chip) examines the effect of microgravity and other space-related stress factors on biotechnology company Emulates human innervated Intestine-Chip (hiIC). This Organ-Chip device enables the study of organ physiology and diseases in a laboratory setting. It allows for automated maintenance, including imaging, sampling, and storage on orbit and data downlink for molecular analysis on Earth.

A better understanding of how microgravity and other potential space travel stressors affect intestine immune cells and susceptibility to infection could help protect astronaut health on future long-term missions. It also could help identify the mechanisms that underlie development of intestinal diseases and possible targets for therapies to treat them on Earth.

Self-assembly and self-replication of materials and devices could enable 3D printing of replacement parts and repair facilities on future long-duration space voyages. Better design and assembly of structures in microgravity also could benefit a variety of fields on Earth, from medicine to electronics.

Called self-assembled colloidal structures, these are vital to the design of advanced optical materials, but control of particle density and behavior is especially important for their use in 3D printing. Microgravity provides insight into the relationships among particle shape, crystal symmetry, density and other characteristics.

Functional structures based on colloids could lead to new devices for chemical energy, communication, and photonics.

The Multi-use Variable-g Platform (MVP) used for the MVP Cell-03 experiment, shown with the MVP door removed and two carousels inside. (Techshot Inc.)

Generation of Cardiomyocytes From Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Cardiac Progenitors Expanded in Microgravity (MVP Cell-03) examines whether microgravity increases the production of heart cells from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs).

HiPSCs are adult cells genetically reprogrammed back into an embryonic-like pluripotent state, which means they can give rise to several different types of cells. This makes them capable of providing an unlimited source of human cells for research or therapeutic purposes.

For MVP Cell-03, scientists induce the stem cells to generate heart precursor cells, then culture those cells on the space station for analysis and comparison with cultures grown on Earth.

These heart cells or cardiomyocytes (CMs) could help treat cardiac abnormalities caused by spaceflight. In addition, scientists could use them to replenish cells damaged or lost due to cardiac disease on Earth and for cell therapy, disease modeling and drug development. Human cardiac tissues damaged by disease cannot repair themselves, and loss of CMs contributes to eventual heart failure and death.

These are just a few of the hundreds of investigations currently aboard the orbiting laboratory. For daily updates, follow @ISS_Research, Space Station Research and Technology News or our Facebook. Follow the ISS National Lab for information on its sponsored investigations. For opportunities to see the space station pass over your town, check out Spot the Station.

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NASA to send equipment to International Space Station to research Improving Shoes, Showers, 3D Printing - Clarksville Online

Whenever Harry Wuest has a doctors appointment in northern Atlantas hospital cluster dubbed Pill Hill, he makes sure to stop by the office of Dr. Douglas Doug Murphy for a quick chat.

And Murphy, unless hes tied up in the operating room, always takes a few minutes to say hello to his former patient. Remember when ... ? is how the conversation typically starts, and its always tinged with laughter, often joyful, sometimes bittersweet.

Its a reunion of two men who shaped a piece of Georgias medical history.

Almost 35 years ago, Murphy opened the chest of Wuest and sewed in a new heart, giving him a second shot at life. Wuest was the third heart transplant patient at Emory University Hospital.

Tall, lanky, with short curly hair and a quiet demeanor, Wuest is the longest-surviving heart transplant recipient in Georgia and one of the longest-surviving in the world. The 75-year-old accountant still plays golf twice a week and only recently went from working full-time to part-time. My heart is doing just fine, he says.

Murphy is now the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory Saint Josephs Hospital and still in the operating room almost every day. He has moved on to become the worlds leading expert in robotically assisted heart surgery.

Harry Wuest is originally from Long Island, New York. After a stint in the Air Force, he moved to Florida to work and go to school. He wanted to become a physical education teacher. Then, in 1973, he fell ill. It started with some pain on his left side. He didnt think much of it, but when he got increasingly winded and fatigued, he went to see a doctor.

Several months and numerous specialists later, he received the diagnosis: Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can make the heart become enlarged, thick and rigid, preventing it from pumping enough blood through the body.

They didnt know how I got it, says Wuest, sitting back in a brown leather armchair in the dark, wood-paneled living room of his Stone Mountain home. Maybe it was a virus. And back then, there wasnt much they could do to treat it, except bed rest.

For the next 12 years, Wuest lived life as best as he could. He got a degree in accounting from the University of Central Florida and worked for a real estate developer. There were good days, but there were more bad days. He was often too weak to do anything, and his heart was getting bigger and bigger.

Emorys first transplant surgeon

The first successful human-to-human heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1967 a medical breakthrough that catapulted the surgeon, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, onto the cover of Life magazine and to overnight celebrity status.

This highly publicized event was followed by a brief surge in the procedure around the world, but overall, heart transplants had a rocky start. Most patients died shortly after the surgery, mainly due to organ rejection. Back then, immunosuppressive drugs, which can counteract rejection, were still in their infancy. Many hospitals stopped doing heart transplants in the 1970s.

That changed with the discovery of a highly effective immunosuppressive agent. Cyclosporine got FDA approval in 1983 and altered the world of organ transplants.

It was shortly thereafter when Emory University Hospital decided to launch a heart transplant program, but none of the senior surgeons wanted to do it. Even with the new drug, it was a risky surgery, and mortality was still high.

Its an all-or-nothing operation, Murphy says, as he sits down in his small office overlooking the grayish hospital compound. Hes wearing light blue scrubs from an early morning surgery. At 70, he still has boyish looks, with a lean build and an air of laid-back confidence. If you have a number of bad outcomes initially, it can be detrimental to your career as a surgeon, he says.

But Murphy didnt really have a choice. He remembers that during a meeting of Emorys cardiac surgeons in 1984, he was paged to check on a patient. When he returned, the physicians congratulated him on being appointed the head of the new heart transplant program. He was the youngest in the group and had been recruited from Harvards Massachusetts General Hospital just three years before.

Yeah, thats how I became Emorys first transplant surgeon, says Murphy.

He flew to California to shadow his colleagues at Stanford University Hospital, where most heart transplants were performed at the time. Back home at Emory, he put together a team and rigorously rehearsed the operation. The first transplant patient arrived in April 1985. The surgery was successful, as was the second operation less than a month later.

Around the same time, Harry Wuest wound up in a hospital in Orlando. He needed a transplant, but none of the medical centers in Florida offered the procedure. One of his doctors recommended Emory, and Wuest agreed. I knew I was dying. I could feel it. He was flown to Atlanta by air ambulance and spent several weeks in Emorys cardiac care unit until the evening of May 23, when Murphy walked into his room and said, Weve got a heart.

I could finally breathe again

The heart, as the patient later learned, came from a 19-year-old sophomore at Georgia Tech who had been killed in a car crash.

Organ transplants are a meticulously choreographed endeavor, where timing, coordination and logistics are key. While Murphy and his eight-member team were preparing for the surgery, Wuest was getting ready to say farewell to his family his wife and three teenage sons, and to thank the staff in the cardiac ward.

I was afraid, he recalls, especially of the anesthesia. It scared the heck out of me. He pauses during the reminiscence, choking briefly. I didnt know if I was going to wake up again.

The surgery took six hours. Transplants usually happen at night because the procurement team, the surgeons who retrieve different organs from the donor, only start working when regularly scheduled patients are out of the operating room.

Despite the cultural mystique surrounding the heart as the seat of life, Murphy says that during a transplant surgery, its not like the big spirit comes down to the operating room. Its very technical. As the team follows a precise routine, emotions are kept outside the door. We dont have time for that. Emotions come later.

Waking up from the anesthesia, Wuests first coherent memory was of Murphy entering the room and saying to a nurse, Lets turn on the TV, so Harry can watch some sports.

Wuest spent the next nine days in the ICU, and three more weeks in the hospital ward. In the beginning, he could barely stand up or walk, because he had been bedridden weeks before the surgery and had lost a lot of muscle. But his strength came back quickly. I could finally breathe again, he says. Before the surgery, he felt like he was sucking in air through a tiny straw. I cannot tell you what an amazing feeling that was to suddenly breathe so easily.

Joane Goodroe was the head nurse at Emorys cardiovascular post-op floor back then. When she first met Wuest before the surgery, she recalls him lying in bed and being very, very sick. When she and the other nurses finally saw him stand up and move around, he was a whole different person.

In the early days of Emorys heart transplant program, physicians, nurses and patients were a particularly close-knit group, remembers Goodroe, whos been a nurse for 42 years and now runs a health care consulting firm. There were a lot of firsts for all of us, and we all learned from each other, she said.

Wuest developed friendships with four other early transplant patients at Emory, and he has outlived them all.

When he left the hospital, equipped with a new heart and a fresh hunger for life, Wuest made some radical changes. He decided not to return to Florida but stay in Atlanta. Thats where he felt he got the best care, and where he had found a personal support network. And he got a divorce. Four months after the operation, he went back to working full-time: first in temporary jobs and eventually for a property management company.

After having been sick for 12 years, I was just so excited to be able to work for eight hours a day, he recalls. That was a big, big deal for me.

At 50, he went back to school to get his CPA license. He also found new love.

Martha was a head nurse in the open-heart unit and later ran the cardiac registry at Saint Josephs Hospital. Thats where Wuest received his follow-up care and where they met in 1987. Wuest says for him it was love at first sight, but it took another five years until she finally agreed to go out with him. Six months later, they were married.

Harry Wuest and his wife, Martha. She was a head nurse in the open-heart unit and later ran the cardiac registry at Saint Josephs Hospital. Thats where Wuest received his follow-up care and where they met in 1987. Wuest says for him it was love at first sight, but it took another five years until she finally agreed to go out with him. Six months later, they were married.

Having worked in the transplant office, I saw the good and the bad, Martha Wuest says. A petite woman with short, perfectly groomed silver hair, she sits up very straight on the couch, her small hands folded in her lap. Not every transplant patient did as well as Harry. And I had a lot of fear in the beginning. Now he may well outlive her, she says with a smile and a wink.

Wuests surgeon, meanwhile, went on to fight his own battles. Two and a half years into the program, Murphy was still the only transplant surgeon at Emory and on call to operate whenever a heart became available. Frustrated and exhausted, he quit his position at Emory and signed up with Saint Josephs (which at the time was not part of the Emory system) and started a heart transplant program there.

At St. Josephs, Murphy continued transplanting hearts until 2005. In total, he did more than 200 such surgeries.

Being a heart transplant surgeon is a grueling profession, he says, and very much a younger surgeons subspecialty.

He then shifted his focus and became a pioneer in robotically assisted heart surgery. He has done more than 3,000 operations with the robot, mostly mitral valve repairs and replacements more than any other cardiac surgeon in the world.

Heart transplants "remain the gold standard"

Since Murphy sewed a new heart into Wuest 35 years ago, there has been major progress in the field of heart transplants, but it has been uneven.

There is improved medication to prevent rejection of the donor heart, as well as new methods of preserving and transporting donor hearts.

Yet patients requiring late-stage heart failure therapy, including transplantation, still exceed the number of donor hearts available. In 2019, 3,551 hearts were transplanted in the United States, according to the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. But 700,000 people suffer from advanced heart failure, says the American Heart Association.

New technologies and continued research are providing hope to many of these patients. There has been significant progress in the development of partial artificial hearts, known as Left Ventricular Assist Devices, or LVADs. They can be used as bridge devices, to keep patients alive until donor hearts are available, or as destination therapy, maintaining patients for the remainder of their lives.

Also, total artificial hearts have come a long way since the first artificial pump was implanted in a patient in 1969. The technology is promising, says Dr. Mani Daneshmand, the director of Emorys Heart & Lung Transplantation Program. But its not perfect.

Long-term research continues into xenotransplantation, which involves transplanting animal cells, tissues and organs into human recipients.

Regenerative stem cell therapy is an experimental concept where stem cell injections stimulate the heart to replace the rigid scar tissue with tissue that resumes contraction, allowing for the damaged heart to heal itself after a heart attack or other cardiac disease. Certain stem cell therapies have shown to reverse the damage to the heart by 30 to 50 percent, says Dr. Joshua Hare, a heart transplant surgeon and the director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miamis Miller School of Medicine.

All of these ideas have potential, says Daneshmand. But none of them are ready to replace a human donor heart. A heart transplant remains the gold standard, because you cant accommodate the same success with a machine right now, he says.

Efforts around expanding the donor pool are really the best way to address this problem, while we wait for technology to catch up, he adds.

Besides Emory, other health care systems in Georgia that currently have a heart transplant program are Piedmont Healthcare, Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta and Augusta University Health.

Organ rejection remains a major issue, and long-term survival rates have not improved dramatically over the past 35 years. The 10-year survival is currently around 55 percent of patients, which makes long-term survivors like Harry Wuest rare in the world of heart transplants.

The United Network of Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which allocates donor hearts in the United States, doesnt have comprehensive data prior to 1987. An informal survey of the 20 highest-volume hospitals for heart transplants in the 1980s found only a scattering of long-term survivors.

In for the long haul

Being one of the longest-living heart transplant recipients is something that Wuest sees as a responsibility to other transplant patients, but also to the donors family, which hes never met. If you as a transplant recipient reject that heart, thats like a second loss for that family.

Part of this responsibility is living a full and active life. Both he and Martha have three children from their previous marriages and combined they have 15 grandchildren. Most of their families live in Florida, so they travel back and forth frequently. Wuest still works as a CPA during tax season, and he does advocacy for the Georgia Transplant Foundation. In addition to golf, he enjoys lifting weights and riding his bike.

Hes had some health scares over the years. In 2013, he was diagnosed with stage 1 kidney cancer, which is in remission. Also, he crossed paths with his former surgeon, and not just socially. In 2014, Murphy replaced a damaged tricuspid valve in Wuests new heart. That operation went well, too.

Murphy says there are several reasons why Wuest has survived so long. Obviously, his new heart was a very good match. But a patient can have the best heart and the best care and the best medicines and still die a few months or years after the transplantation, the surgeon says. Attitude plays a key role.

Wuest was psychologically stable and never suffered from depression or anxiety, Murphy says. Hes a numbers guy. He knew the transplant was his only chance, and he was set to pursue it.

Wuest attributes his longevity to a good strong heart from his donor; good genetics; great doctors and nurses; and a life that he loves. Im just happy to be here, he says.

Quoting his former surgeon and friend, he adds: Doug always said, Having a transplant is like running a marathon. And Im in for the long haul.

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34 years with a new heart and counting - MDJOnline.com

In a couple of weeks, SpaceX will be launching a Dragon cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station (ISS), carrying not only supplies for the astronauts but also a range of scientific equipment and research technology. The cargo includes tools for researching everything from growing human heart cells to making more comfortable sneakers.

One of the largest additions to the ISS will be the Bartolomeo facility, a European Space Agency project to provide more room for scientific experiments by attaching to the outside of the space station. Potential uses for the extended space include Earth observation, robotics, material science, and astrophysics, according to NASA.

Other projects include one by Adidas to test out its molding process in which thousands of pellets are blown together until they fuse, creating a midsole for shoes to make them more cushioned for high-performance athletes. Theres also a study into how water droplets form in low gravity which could help reduce the amount of water used by showers here on Earth, assisting the important project of water conservation. And theres a project to test improvements in 3D printing which could be used to print spare parts and repair tools for future space voyages.

Finally, there are also two biomedical experiments being taken to the ISS. One will look at how microgravity affects biotechnology like the Organ Chip which simulates the responses of human tissue on a small chip. And the other will investigate whether it is possible to grow human heart cells from stem cells in microgravity. The researchers believe the development of these heart cells could eventually be used to treat cardiac problems here on Earth, especially among children as their cardiac issues are particularly hard to treat.

The mission is scheduled to launch at 10:45 p.m. PT on Sunday, March 1, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This will be the 20th mission as part of NASAs Commercial Resupply Services contract, in which private companies like SpaceX and Boeing take over some duties for delivering supplies to the ISS.

In the future, SpaceX will be taking a larger part in ISS operations as well. It will be delivering astronauts to and from the space station as part of NASAs Commercial Crew program, using its Crew Dragon capsule. The first manned Crew Dragon mission is targeted for May 7.

Visit link:
Here are all the science projects that SpaceX will deliver to the ISS - Digital Trends

Reporters note: The below piece is intended as comedy. Obviously, it is a huge and wonderful privilege to be able to travel for work, and to do so at least partly on someone elses dime. I hope the following is not interpreted as a complaint, and that its received in the spirit in which I intended.

As someone who has lived in both Connecticut and Michigan, I am pretty used to cold temperatures. I know how to dress for them (layers always layers) and Im not someone who is overly sensitive to cold. But a few days I was introduced to a concept I had never really been aware of Florida cold.

When I say Florida cold, I am not referring to a climate change effect, in which normally balmy Florida gets hit with a cold spell. I am referring to what happens when buildings in a warm locale, such as Florida, crank their air conditioning up to a punishing level.

This leaves out-of-towners such as myself shuddering in their t-shirts while inside, and praying for any opportunity to run into the comforting sunshine.

Ive been to Florida before, but I wasnt familiar with the concept of Florida cold until I went to a recent work conference in West Palm Beach. I was fortunate enough to be picked for a prestigious fellowship from the National Press Foundation that involved spending four and a half days in Florida listening to experts from across the country discuss heart health.

I was stoked. I would learn so much that could help me to better cover my beat! I would get to meet accomplished journalists from throughout the United States! And, there was, of course, the small fact that I would be escaping Connecticut during the thick of winter and fleeing to warmer climes. Wins all around!

But my husband, a much more seasoned traveler than myself, suggested that, since the conference would largely take place indoors, I should pack some long sleeves and a couple of sweaters in with the t-shirts and dresses. Little did I know what a wise choice this ended up being.

When I arrived in Florida, temps were in the 70s or so. Given that my morning in Connecticut had begun with defrosting my car, then carefully driving on a very slippery Merritt Parkway to the airport, this was welcome.

I enjoyed the weather at first, changing from long sleeves into short sleeves, and enjoying lunch at our hotels poolside tiki bar. But, once the conference began in earnest, reality set in. Since I was giving a presentation, I grabbed a blazer so I looked like a grown-up who should be taken seriously.

When I walked into the conference room, I thanked every deity across the theological spectrum for my decision to wear the blazer. The A/C was cranked up to a alarmingly high level. People were visibly shivering. Arms were being pulled inside sleeves. It was ... not ideal.

After the evenings presentations were done, I retired to my hotel room, which was also freezing. It was so cold, I took a blazing hot shower, then sat in the steamy post-shower bathroom for a good half hour before hitting my bed.

The next day, we were to go to the University of Miami to hear from their heart experts, and to tour a laboratory. I was excited, because Miami is fun, and because I thought it couldnt possibly be as cold at the university as it was at the hotel. So, in a foolish move that I shall regret for the rest of my days, I wore a t-shirt.

Look, in reality the conference room in which we met at the university was probably about 50 degrees. Relatively speaking, that isnt that cold. I mean, I am from New England. Thats basically all of mid-April. But, when youre in a light t-shirt, 50 degrees might as well be 20 degrees.

Because brother, was I cold.

The speakers at the university were very science-oriented, and a theory began circulating that the cold temperatures were a stealthy way of keeping us awake during the somewhat-dry lectures. And yes, the cold kept us awake, but its a little hard to concentrate on a lecture about stem cells when you fear you might die of hypothermia.

Now, the trip was not all science lectures and arctic air conditioning. Not at all! I did get outside on occasion. A group of us ventured out to a taco restaurant in West Palm one night called Roccos Tacos. I had some delicious pork belly tacos, some delightfully spicy guacamole and an excellent margarita.

Yes, I realize I had a frozen drink after whining for multiple paragraphs about how cold the conference rooms were. The margarita was delicious and I deserved one. Your reasonable arguments about why that was hypocritical are wholly unwelcome.

On another night, a group of us went out to the Palm Beach area and walked on the sand before enjoying another delightful meal.

Oh, and I learned a lot about heart health, which I hope to share with you all.

That air conditioning, though.

Excerpt from:
'Florida cold' and the semi-glamorous world of work trips - CT Insider

Whenever Harry Wuest has a doctors appointment in northern Atlantas hospital cluster dubbed Pill Hill, he makes sure to stop by the office of Dr. Douglas Doug Murphy for a quick chat.

And Murphy, unless hes tied up in the operating room, always takes a few minutes to say hello to his former patient. Remember when . . . ? is how the conversation typically starts, and its always tinged with laughter, often joyful, sometimes bittersweet.

Its a reunion of two men who shaped a piece of Georgias medical history.

Almost 35 years ago, Murphy opened the chest of Wuest and sewed in a new heart, giving him a second shot at life. Wuest was the third heart transplant patient at Emory University Hospital.

Tall, lanky, with short curly hair and a quiet demeanor, Wuest is the longest-surviving heart transplant recipient in Georgia and one of the longest-surviving in the world. The 75-year-old accountant still plays golf twice a week and only recently went from working full-time to part-time.

My heart is doing just fine, he says.

Murphy is now the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory Saint Josephs Hospital and still in the operating room almost every day. He has moved on to become the worlds leading expert in robotically assisted heart surgery.

***

Harry Wuest is originally from Long Island, N.Y. After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, he moved to Florida to work and go to school. He wanted to become a physical education teacher. Then, in 1973, he fell ill. It started with some pain on his left side. He didnt think much of it, but when he got increasingly winded and fatigued, he went to see a doctor.

Several months and numerous specialists later, he received the diagnosis: Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can make the heart become enlarged, thick and rigid, preventing it from pumping enough blood through the body.

They didnt know how I got it, says Wuest, sitting back in a brown leather armchair in the dark, wood-paneled living room of his Stone Mountain home. Maybe it was a virus. And back then, there wasnt much they could do to treat it, except bed rest.

For the next 12 years, Wuest lived life as best as he could. He got a degree in accounting from the University of Central Florida and worked for a real estate developer. There were good days, but there were more bad days. He was often too weak to do anything, and his heart was getting bigger and bigger.

***

The first successful human-to-human heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1967 a medical breakthrough that catapulted the surgeon, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, onto the cover of Life magazine and to overnight celebrity status.

This highly publicized event was followed by a brief surge in the procedure around the world, but overall, heart transplants had a rocky start. Most patients died shortly after the surgery, mainly due to organ rejection. Back then, immunosuppressive drugs, which can counteract rejection, were still in their infancy. Many hospitals stopped doing heart transplants in the 1970s.

That changed with the discovery of a highly effective immunosuppressive agent. Cyclosporine got FDA approval in 1983 and altered the world of organ transplants.

It was shortly thereafter when Emory University Hospital decided to launch a heart transplant program, but none of the senior surgeons wanted to do it. Even with the new drug, it was a risky surgery, and mortality was still high.

Its an all-or-nothing operation, Murphy says, as he sits down in his small office overlooking the greyish hospital compound. Hes wearing light blue scrubs from an early morning surgery. At 70, he still has boyish looks, with a lean build and an air of laid-back confidence. If you have a number of bad outcomes initially, it can be detrimental to your career as a surgeon, he says.

But Murphy didnt really have a choice. He remembers that during a meeting of Emorys cardiac surgeons in 1984, he was paged to check on a patient. When he returned, the physicians congratulated him on being appointed the head of the new heart transplant program. He was the youngest in the group and had been recruited from Harvards Massachusetts General Hospital just three years before.

Yeah, thats how I became Emorys first transplant surgeon, says Murphy.

He flew to California to shadow his colleagues at Stanford University Hospital, where most heart transplants were performed at the time. Back home at Emory, he put together a team and rigorously rehearsed the operation. The first transplant patient arrived in April 1985. The surgery was successful, as was the second operation less than a month later.

Around the same time, Harry Wuest wound up in a hospital in Orlando. He needed a transplant, but none of the medical centers in Florida offered the procedure. One of his doctors recommended Emory, and Wuest agreed. I knew I was dying. I could feel it. He was flown to Atlanta by air ambulance and spent several weeks in Emorys cardiac care unit until the evening of May 23, when Murphy walked into his room and said, Weve got a heart.

***

The heart, as the patient later learned, came from a 19-year-old sophomore at Georgia Tech who had been killed in a car crash.

Organ transplants are a meticulously choreographed endeavor, where timing, coordination and logistics are key. While Murphy and his eight-member team were preparing for the surgery, Wuest was getting ready to say farewell to his family his wife and three teenage sons and to thank the staff in the cardiac ward.

I was afraid, he recalls, especially of the anesthesia. It scared the heck out of me. He pauses during the reminiscence, choking briefly. I didnt know if I was going to wake up again.

The surgery took six hours. Transplants usually happen at night because the procurement team, the surgeons who retrieve different organs from the donor, only start working when regularly scheduled patients are out of the operating room.

Despite the cultural mystique surrounding the heart as the seat of life, Murphy says that during a transplant surgery, its not like the big spirit comes down to the operating room. Its very technical. As the team follows a precise routine, emotions are kept outside the door. We dont have time for that. Emotions come later.

After waking up from the anesthesia, Wuests first coherent memory was of Murphy entering the room and saying to a nurse, Lets turn on the TV, so Harry can watch some sports.

Wuest spent the next nine days in the ICU and three more weeks in the hospital ward. In the beginning, he could barely stand up or walk, because he had been bedridden weeks before the surgery and had lost a lot of muscle. But his strength came back quickly. I could finally breathe again, he says. Before the surgery, he felt like he was sucking in air through a tiny straw. I cannot tell you what an amazing feeling that was to suddenly breathe so easily.

Joane Goodroe was the head nurse at Emorys cardiovascular post-op floor back then. When she first met Wuest before the surgery, she recalls him lying in bed and being very, very sick. When she and the other nurses finally saw him stand up and move around, he was a whole different person.

In the early days of Emorys heart transplant program, physicians, nurses and patients were a particularly close-knit group, remembers Goodroe, whos been a nurse for 42 years and now runs a health care consulting firm. There were a lot of firsts for all of us, and we all learned from each other, she said.

Wuest developed friendships with four other early transplant patients at Emory, and he has outlived them all.

When he left the hospital, equipped with a new heart and a fresh hunger for life, Wuest made some radical changes. He decided not to return to Florida but stay in Atlanta. Thats where he felt he got the best care, and where he had found a personal support network. And he got a divorce. Four months after the operation, he went back to working full-time: first in temporary jobs and eventually for a property management company.

After having been sick for 12 years, I was just so excited to be able to work for eight hours a day, he recalls. That was a big, big deal for me.

At 50, he went back to school to get his CPA license. He also found new love.

Martha was a head nurse in the open-heart unit and later ran the cardiac registry at Saint Josephs Hospital. Thats where Wuest received his follow-up care and where they met in 1987. Wuest says for him it was love at first sight, but it took another five years until she finally agreed to go out with him. Six months later, they were married.

Having worked in the transplant office, I saw the good and the bad, Martha Wuest says. A petite woman with short, perfectly groomed silver hair, she sits up very straight on the couch, her small hands folded in her lap.Not every transplant patient did as well as Harry. And I had a lot of fear in the beginning. Now he may well outlive her, she says with a smile and a wink.

Wuests surgeon, meanwhile, went on to fight his own battles. Two and a half years into the program, Murphy was still the only transplant surgeon at Emory and on call to operate whenever a heart became available. Frustrated and exhausted, he quit his position at Emory and signed up with Saint Josephs (which at the time was not part of the Emory system) and started a heart transplant program there.

At St. Joes, Murphy continued transplanting hearts until 2005. In total, he did more than 200 such surgeries.

Being a heart transplant surgeon is a grueling profession, he says, and very much a younger surgeons subspecialty.

He then shifted his focus and became a pioneer in robotically assisted heart surgery.He has done more than 3,000 operations with the robot, mostly mitral valve repairs and replacements more than any other cardiac surgeon in the world.

***

Since Murphy sewed a new heart into Wuest, 35 years ago, there has been major progress in the field of heart transplants,but it has been uneven.

Medications to suppress the immune system have improved, says Dr. Jeffrey Miller, a transplant surgeon and heart failure specialist at Emory. As a result, we are seeing fewer cases of rejections of the donor heart.

Also, there are new methods of preserving and transporting donor hearts.

Yet patients requiring late-stage heart failure therapy, including transplantation, still exceed the number of donor hearts available. In 2019, 3,551 hearts were transplanted in the United States, according to the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. But 700,000 people suffer from advanced heart failure, says the American Heart Association.

New technologies and continued research are providing hope to many of these patients. There has been significant progress in the development of partial artificial hearts, known as Left Ventricular Assist Devices, or LVADs, says Miller.

These are implantable mechanical pumps that assist the failing heart. Patients are back out in society living normal lives while theyre waiting for their donor hearts, he explains.

LVADs are used not only as bridge devices but as destination therapy as well, maintaining certain patients for the remainder of their lives.

Also, total artificial hearts have come a long way since the first artificial pump was implanted in a patient in 1969.

Long-term research continues into xenotransplantation, which involves transplanting animal cells, tissues and organs into human recipients.

Regenerative stem cell therapy is an experimental concept where stem cell injections stimulate the heart to replace the rigid scar tissue with tissue that resumes contraction, allowing for the damaged heart to heal itself after a heart attack or other cardiac disease.

Certain stem cell therapies have shown toreverse the damage to the heart by 30 to 50 percent, says Dr. Joshua Hare, a heart transplant surgeon and the director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miamis Miller School of Medicine.

All of these ideas have potential, says Miller. But they have a lot of work before were ready to use them as alternatives to heart transplantation. I dont think were talking about the next few years.

Besides Emory, other health care systems in Georgia that currently have a heart transplant program are Piedmont Healthcare, Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta and Augusta University Health.

Organ rejection remains a major issue, and long-term survival rates have not improved dramatically over the past 35 years. The 10-year survival is currently around 55 percent of patients, which makes long-term-survivors like Harry Wuest rare in the world of heart transplants.

The United Network of Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which allocates donor hearts in the United States, doesnt have comprehensive data prior to 1987. An informal survey of the 20 highest-volume hospitals for heart transplants in the 1980s found only a scattering of long-term survivors.

***

Being one of the longest-living heart transplant recipients is something that Wuest sees as a responsibility to other transplant patients, but also to the donors family, which hes never met. If you as a transplant recipient reject that heart, thats like a second loss for that family.

Part of this responsibility is living a full and active life. Both he and Martha have three children from their previous marriages, and combined they have 15 grandchildren. Most of their families live in Florida, so they travel back and forth frequently. Wuest still works as a CPA during tax season, and he does advocacy for the Georgia Transplant Foundation. In addition to golf, he enjoys lifting weights and riding his bike.

Hes had some health scares over the years. In 2013, he was diagnosed with stage 1 kidney cancer, which is in remission. Also, he crossed paths with his former surgeon, and not just socially. In 2014, Murphy replaced a damaged tricuspid valve in Wuests new heart. That operation went well, too.

Murphy says there are several reasons why Wuest has survived so long. Obviously, his new heart was a very good match. But a patient can have the best heart and the best care and the best medicines and still die a few months or years after the transplantation, the surgeon says. Attitude plays a key role.

Wuest was psychologically stable and never suffered from depression or anxiety, Murphy says. Hes a numbers guy. He knew the transplant was his only chance, and he was set to pursue it.

Wuest attributes his longevity to a good strong heart from his donor; good genetics; great doctors and nurses; and a life that he loves. Im just happy to be here, he says.

Quoting his former surgeon and friend, he adds: Doug always said, Having a transplant is like running a marathon. And Im in for the long haul.

Katja Ridderbusch is an Atlanta-based journalist who reports for news organizations in the U.S. and her native Germany. Her stories have appeared in Kaiser Health News, U.S. News & World Report and several NPR affiliates.

This is a slightly modified version of the article 34 Years with a New Heart, published by Georgia Health News on February 18, 2020.

Excerpt from:
34 Years with a New Heart and Counting | 90.1 FM WABE - WABE 90.1 FM