Cardiac arrest remains one of the leading causes of death in the world. Current therapies used for over thirty years focus only on restoring blood flow quickly and have done little to improve survival. The newest science reveals a surprise - more cells die in the first minutes after blood flow is returned than die during the time that blood flow is stopped . We believe there is hope for a better method to resuscitate cells that in turn will save the lives of thousands of human beings. Hope ERRC scientists believe that it is more than wishful thinking to break the four-minute time barrier for successful resuscitation.
Great things are possible when scientists work together on a common problem.
By bringing together scientists from divergent backgrounds, the Center brings the best of new findings from engineering, the biological and physical sciences, and medicine to fight cardiac arrest. Dramatic improvement in cell survival, even after one hour of ischemia, can be achieved if certrain key conditions during the restoration of blood flow are changed. The answer lies therefore, in finding better ways to bring cells back from the brink of death, in short, by changing the way we resuscitate. By understanding the underlying mechanisms of cell damage caused by sudden death from the level of molecules and DNA, to the way cells and tissues communicate with each other during stress, to engineering new devices to better measure cell damage and recovery in human patients. Center scientists are committed to developing new medicines and devices for optimal resuscitation.