Texas Heart Institute (THI) and Rice University completed in the national STAT Madness competition to choose the past year’s best in biomedical research.

Sixty-four research projects were chosen to compete. The THI/Rice team won five tough matchups before the final championship round against the Koch Institute at MIT. 

The THI/Rice research team, co-led by Director of Electrophysiology Clinical Research and Innovations, Dr. Mehdi Razavi and Matteo Pasquali, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of materials science and nano-engineering and of chemistry at Rice, competed with promising research partially funded by the American Heart Association through a 2015 grant.

The scientific paper at the heart of the competition was published as an open-access Editor’s Pick in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology as an open-access Editor’s Pick.

Although THI and Rice did not win the final round, carbon nanotubes for tackling the challenges of treating heart disease and cancer were the clear fan favorites.

STAT News reporter, Elizabeth Cooney interviewed Dr. Mehdi Razavi and MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering team to share the wonders of carbon nanotubes and their potential for heart and cancer medicine.

Learn More about the finalist in STAT News In The Lab

 

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Rewiring Hearts With Nanotubes Soft fibers bridge gap to restore healthy beat. (n.d.). Rice Magazine Winter 2020, 25.    Graphic by Daisy Chung