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#1. Gross CP, Anderson GF, Powe NR. The relation between funding
by the national institutes of health and the burden of disease.
For a direct link to this paper, click here.
Comment by mdt: Amazing! The authors rank-ordered the 29 diseases
or conditions that receive the most funding from NIH, with AIDS at
the top (1.4 billion $ and 42 thousand deaths/yr, and peptic ulcer
at the bottom (6 million $ and 6 thousand deaths/yr). Would you
believe that aortic aneurysms, with about 25 thousand deaths/yr,
didn't even make the list of funded diseases?! Yet, as a leading
cause of death, aneurysms rank between 13th (cirrhosis) and 14th
(perinatal conditions). Cirrhosis gets 170 million dollars/year.
Happily, and probably because so many people read Bill Maples' very
fine aneurysm support page (see link on home page), the NIH has
finally put out a request for applications for aneurysm research.
This announcement was a historic *first*, and decades overdue.
#2. Chew DKW, Knoetgen J3, Xia S, Gaetz HP, Tilson MD. Regional
distribution in human of a novel aortic collagen-associated
microfibrillar protein. For a direct link to this paper, click here.
Comment by mdt: This paper describes the distribution in man of
the first Artery-Specific Antigenic Protein (ASAP) discovered in
human aorta in my lab (AAAP-40). We believe that it may play an
important role in aneurysmal degeneration of the aorta. Incidentally,
the work was done by Dr. David Chew when he did a research year in
my lab between his 3rd and 4th years of training in General Surgery.
He's graduated from year 5 now and departed for Harvard, for further
training with Dr. Whittemore and associates at the Brigham. Good
going, David, and keep up the good work.
BTW, David is on the far right in the End of Year Lab Party picture,
if I can just get the link to work right.