Educational Intervention in a Medically Underserved Area.

Context: Medical students from rural and medically underserved areas (MUAs) are more likely than their peers to practice medicine in rural areas and MUAs. However, students from MUAs are also more likely to face socioeconomic barriers to a career in medicine.

Objective: To determine whether a week-long summer enrichment experience (SEE) at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine-Carolinas could successfully teach high school students from MUAs basic biomedical concepts and foster an interest in medicine and the health sciences.

Influence of the extracellular matrix on the regulation of cardiac fibroblast behavior by mechanical stretch.

Fibroblasts are responsible in large part for production, organization, and turnover of the extracellular matrix (ECM), thereby regulating the fibrotic content of the heart. Excessive fibrosis, which has been associated with certain forms of hemodynamic overload such as hypertension, is thought to result in increased ventricular chamber stiffness, and eventual heart failure. As such, the role of mechanical stretch in regulating fibroblast activity is crucial to our understanding of healthy and diseased hearts.

The myocardial heat shock response following sodium salicylate treatment.

In cultured cells, salicylate has been shown to potentiate the induction of Hsp72 so that a mild heat stress (40 degrees C) in the presence of salicylate induces an Hsp72 response that is similar to a severe heat stress (42 degrees C). To determine whether salicylate can potentiate the myocardial Hsp70 response in vivo and confer protection from an ischemic stress, male Sprague-Dawley rats (250-300 g) were placed into 5 groups: (1) control, (2) salicylate only (400 mg/kg), (3) mild heat stress (40 degrees C for 15 minutes), (4) mild heat stress plus salicylate, and (5) severe heat stress (42 degrees C for 15 minutes). Twenty-four hours following salicylate treatment and/or heat stress, animals were anesthetized, their hearts rapidly isolated, and hemodynamic function evaluated using the Langendorff technique.