This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ross, J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ross, J., Jr

(Circulation Research. 2003;92:480.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorials

From Pump to Molecules

John Ross, Jr

From the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Molecular Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif.

Correspondence to John Ross, Jr, MD, University of California, San Diego, Basic Science Building, Room 5022, 9500 Gilman Dr, La Jolla, CA 92093-0641. E-mail jross@ucsd.edu

Key Words: cardiac function • ischemic heart disease • molecular biology • gene transfer

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

In response to Eduardo Marbán’s invitation to prepare a brief reminiscence on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Circulation Research, I recount here a few of the ideas and events that have marked my 47 years in research.

My research career began when, fresh from a surgical internship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, I arrived at the then National Heart Institute in 1956. There, having watched Andrew Morrow perform transbronchial left heart catheterization, I thought there must be a better way. I soon became immersed in developing a method for transseptal left heart catheterization, first in dogs, then in human cadavers, and finally in patients; thus, my first research experience proved to be "translational." It was satisfying to later see this approach used for balloon mitral valvuloplasty and in cardiac electrophysiology.

Some Reflections on Cardiac Physiology

In the early 1960s, there was considerable ferment in the Cardiology Branch of the National Heart Institute in Bethesda within a group of investigators brought together by Eugene Braunwald, one important aspect of which concerned cardiac function. We discussed the current state of cardiac physiology, comparing the approach of Robert Rushmer in intact animals with that of Stanley Sarnoff in the tightly regulated isolated supported heart. Playfully, we formulated two laws of the heart: Rushmer’s Law "When nothing is held constant everything changes" and Sarnoff’s Law "When everything is held constant nothing changes."

Stimulated primarily by the work of Ed Sonnenblick (then at the NIH), I pondered how we might begin to apply the principles of isolated . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. Ross Jr Transseptal left heart catheterization a 50-year odyssey. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol., June 3, 2008; 51(22): 2107 - 2115. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]