This is the blog of the Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Cardiac Arrhythmia located at the University of Copenhagen.
Long time no see, yet now a lot to watch…
You haven’t heard from us for a while, yet now you can watch one of us at the American Heart Conference… Bo Gregers Winkel, MD and PhD student at DARC, talked at a session about “Understanding unexplained sudden cardiac death”
Check it out!
Foremost it’s a pump!
Trivial but true: the heart is a pump! It’s pumping blood through the blood vessels thereby delivering nutrients and oxygen to the body’s cells. Blood consists of a number of different cells, the most abundant of which are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein. Hemoglobin is crucial for the transport of oxygen in blood.
Well, why do I tell you this? Its’ because there are plenty more fish in the sea, that is other reseachers do a good job, too. That can be perfectly witnessed at the 2009 AAAS Science Dance Contest and in the most beautiful contribution to the “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest – the video “A molecular Dance in the Blood, Observed”.
The dance visualizes Prof. Vince LiCata’s Ph.D. thesis “Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids” (1990, Johns Hopkins University). We see the interaction of pairs of hemoglobin molecules. LiCata studied this interaction by cooling them down and taking pictures. On stage, Mr. Winter (the long-bearded guy) comes along and pours Styrofoam frost followed by another dancer snap shooting the proceedings.
Enjoy!
Feature in Universitetsavisen
Read two articles about DARC in the latest issue of Universitetsavisen!
The articles deal with our internationalization strategies. At DARC, we try both to attract excellent brains to Denmark and to send out our students to outstanding labs all over the world.
Read why we think it’s attractive to promote internationalization (page 14) and where we face limitations by bureaucracy (page 15).
DARC on TV
Viden Om“. That’s the title of a scientific series on Danish TV channel DR2.
Watch the program on Tuesday October 21st at 20.00 on DR2!
Centre leader Søren-Peter Olesen will tell about cardiac function during exercise and extreme sport.
At DARC, several studies are running to elucidate the molecular mechanisms why these ’sports hearts’ are prone to AF and bradycardias. For instance, PhD student Bo Gregers Winkel is focussing on “Sudden cardiac death in young Danes”. In another PhD project, Morten Salling Olesen is trying to solve the question “Atrial fibrillation in the young – a genetic disease?”
Please have a look at our current PhD projects in the Education section on the DARC homepage.
And don’t miss the transmission on Oct 21st!
You will get a glimpse of our facilities and e.g. see a Langendorff set-up that we use in a variety of studies at DARC.
How to teach the basics of cardiac arrhythmia…
Teaching revisited: the pumping motions of the heart in various conditions can be illustrated very strikingly and memorably. You won’t forget the features of certain arrhythmias anymore. All you have to do is to take about 5 minutes of your time and watch the professor! It’s worth it!
Summer begins…
Though the sunshine decided to disappear again, the forecast sounds good anyway: The first summer student is about to join the Ion Channel Group.
Shahed Alam is student from John Hopkins University in Baltimore majoring in biomedical engineering. He will work with us for about three months as summer student. Shahed will help setting up studies concerning a new mechanism possibly involved in arrhythmogenesis.
A warm welcome, Shahed!
DARC and the Royals
Centre leader Søren-Peter Olesen gave a talk on ‘The Danish-Australian Cardiac Research Connection’ at the occasion of the Prince Christian Fellowship award session. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark presented the award at the first awards ceremony.
The ceremony took place at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters on March 18th.
The Prince Christian Fellowship was established by the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute to honour the birth of Prince Christian, and was given to Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik. The Australian Research Centre intends to enable outstanding scientists or doctors from Denmark to spend at least one year working and training at one of Australia’s leading biomedical research institutes located in Sydney.
See pictures of the lucky laureate Filip Krag Knop and the ceremony on the DARC website.
Festival of Research
DARC centre leader Søren-Peter Olesen gives a lecture on cardiac arrhythmia on the occasion of the “Festival of Research” (in Danish: Forskningens Døgn). He will give insight into the molecular and cellular background of the electrical activity of the heart. The event takes place on April 25th at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters from 3-10 pm.
The Festival of Research is an annual national event that aims at increasing public interest in research. Scientist from all areas of research tell the general public about their current activities. They introduce the methods, processes, and outcome of their work in an exciting and unconventional way.
The festival is coordinated by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology, and Innovation. Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary is patroness of Festival of Research.
International know-how
DARC is getting more and more international. That’s definitely worth a notion!
Meanwhile, we are gathering senior scientists, post docs, and graduate students from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, and Russia. Latest entry – China: Bo Liang joined the Ion Channel Group as a graduate student. Bo received his Master’s degree from the School of Medicine at the Tongji University in China. Now he will investigate if and how cardiac arrhythmia can be treated by ion channel activation.
A warm welcome, Bo!
Now it’s for real! We will blog.
Today I introduced the concept of blogging at one of our “DARC Academic Meetings“. Well, it looks like we’ll get there. We will not blog around the clock, neither until we drop, anyway… Soon, there will be a first report from a student’s 6-months stay abroad, soon there will be meeting minutes. Soon soon