Closer Look
Hoping 'the amputation never happens': a new device turns veins into arteries
Courtesy LimFlow
Cynthia Elford was in danger of losing her right leg after vasculitis, a genetic disease that blocks blood flow to the legs, had already taken her left one. Because traditional surgical methods had failed to save her left leg, an interventional cardiologist offered her a new treatment from a company called LimFlow. "I didn't want my leg off because I don't know that I would have been able, emotionally, to get through it," Elford told STAT's Lizzy Lawrence.
The device, which the FDA approved last month, uses an old surgical technique: a stent connects the blocked artery to an open vein, allowing blood to flow through and heal injuries. LimFlow lets doctors perform the surgery via a catheter inserted at the bottom of the foot. Experts caution the device will help only some people with peripheral artery disease, and it remains to be seen if patients will retain legs long-term. Read more.
pandemic
End of an era: No more CDC vaccination cards
Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
Depending on your point of view, those ubiquitous Covid vaccine cards are on their way to becoming collector's items or headed to the recycling bin. Government-distributed Covid vaccines are no more, so the CDC has ceased printing them, the Associated Press reported yesterday. New York State had already discontinued its "NYS Wallet App" on July 28 "because demand for instant access to vaccine records has subsided." Many other states offer digital records of the jabs, but CDC had also issued more than 980 million cards between late 2020, when the first vaccines rolled out, through May 10.
If you still want to document your vaccinations, you'll have to ask, just as you might for other immunizations. Some clinics, pharmacies, or health departments that administered the shots can provide those records. Every state and some cities have an immunization registry, though rules vary on how to get copies recording yours.
awards
MacArthur genius grants honor research in reproductive health, air quality, and gene expression
The MacArthur Foundation introduced its newest Genius Grant Fellows yesterday, part of its mission encouraging people with exceptional talents to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional pursuits. This year's class is full of writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, and entrepreneurs. The fellowship, along with a stipend of $800,000 paid over five years, can be used to exercise their own creative instincts, advance their expertise, or pivot their careers. Fellows in the life sciences include:
- Diana Greene Foster, a demographer and reproductive health researcher at University of California, San Francisco investigating how reproductive health care policies and access impact individuals' physical, mental, and socioeconomic well-being, as she wrote in this First Opinion.
- Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech examining indoor and outdoor air quality and the airborne transmission of infectious bioaerosols, known for her work on influenza and Covid-19.
- Jason Buenrosto, a cellular and molecular biologist at Harvard University developing methods and technologies that advance our understanding of the mechanisms regulating gene expression, focusing on single-cell methods he and his colleagues created.
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