Whenever you choke on acrid cigarette smoke, feel like you're burning up from a mouthful of wasabi-laced sushi, or cry while cutting raw onions and garlic, your response is being triggered by a primordial chemical sensor conserved across some 500 million years of animal evolution, report Brandeis University scientists in a study in Nature this week.

Over the past 40 years, more than 2,400 patents and patent applications-pioneering modern medicine with the devices and drugs that advance minimally invasive treatments-have been filed by members of the Society of Interventional Radiology.

Antidepressants are effective against depression in patients suffering from physical illnesses, according to a new systematic review by Cochrane researchers at King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre in the UK. The researchers found the drugs were more effective than placebos at treating depression in these patients.

To understand the role of inflammation in cardiovascular and other diseases, it is essential to identify and characterize genes that induce an inflammatory response in the body -- and the genes that regulate them.

NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) interventional cardiologist, Ted Feldman, MD, presented data today at the American College of Cardiology annual scientific sessions from the EVEREST II trial (Endovascular Valve Edge-to-Edge REpair STudy) demonstrating the MitraClip, a novel, first-in-class catheter-based device, is a safe and effective alternative to open heart surgery for select patients with mitral regurgitation.