More Marfan Awarness with RENT

When one door closes, another door opens. So it is for the Broadway show, RENT, the multi-award winning hit musical, which finished its run on Broadway on September 7.

Now, school, community and regional theatrical productions of RENT will bring the words and music of playwright Jonathan Larson, to an even greater audience. It will also bring an increased number of opportunities for Marfan syndrome awareness.

The NMF worked closely with the licensing group to ensure that information about Marfan syndrome is included in the packet that local groups receive when they are going to stage the performance.

The drama club at Temescal Canyon High School, in Lake Elsinore, CA, is one group that is taking advantage of this opportunity for Marfan syndrome education. You can read about how RENT was more than a theater production for these students in their local paper, The North County Times.

New Medical Journal Announced: Science Translational Medicine

The American Association for the Advancement of Science announced this week that it will launch a new journal dedicated to translational medicine in the Fall. Translational medicine uses insights from basic biology to improve medical care. The former director of the National Institutes of Health, Elias Zerhouni, MD, will be chief scientific advisor.

In explaining translational medicine in its press release, AAAS cites as an example the work of NMF Professional Advisory Board member Hal Dietz, MD, and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins. They successfully studied losartan in mice engineered to have Marfan syndrome and now, in cooperation with the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute and the Pediatric Heart Network, are involved in the clinical trial to test losartan in people with Marfan syndrome.

The NMF has always been a strong proponent of translational research, encouraging research that bridges the gap from the bench (lab) to bedside (patient care). The NMF’s research grant program has a history of funding this research and lauds AAAS for choosing to focus on it in its new journal.

Hal Dietz, MD, will serve on the publication’s advisory board.