Welcome to Benchmarks, your weekly dose of news and notes from the Mass General research community. With more than 9,500 people working across 30+ departments, and programs, there is more research news each week than we can cover. Here are a few highlights:

• Research in the News
• Dr. Sundt Discusses the Future of Cardiac Care at Mass General
• Exercise-Induced Hormone Irisin May Reduce Alzheimer’s Disease Plaque and Tangle Pathology in the Brain
• Saxena Receives Mentoring Award and Takes on New Research and Innovation Role
• Tweets of the Week
• This Week in Mass General History
• After 30 Operations, Badly Injured Man Has a New Face with Scalp and Hair
• Mass General Program Provides Injured Soldiers With Useful and Profitable Trades

Research in the News

Dr. Sundt Discusses the Future of Cardiac Care at Mass General

“Cardiovascular care has advanced dramatically in just the past decade,” says Thoralf Sundt, III, MD, chair of Cardiac Surgery in the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center and Mass General Brigham Enterprise director for Cardiac Surgery Clinical Service.

“Beyond surviving their episode, people want to be restored to the quality of life they enjoyed before disease. Our multidisciplinary research and care teams are creating those opportunities.”

Recent innovations have enabled less invasive interventions that reduce procedural trauma and shorten recovery time to restore patients to full function.

“Our cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists work hand in hand to improve patient care, whether focused on catheter-based interventions to treat coronary artery disease or the implantation of mechanical support devices to strengthen a weakened heart,” says Dr. Sundt. Read more.

Exercise-Induced Hormone Irisin May Reduce Alzheimer’s Disease Plaque and Tangle Pathology in the Brain

Researchers who previously developed the first 3D human cell culture models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that displays two major hallmarks of the condition—the generation of amyloid beta deposits followed by tau tangles—have now used their model to investigate whether the exercise-induced muscle hormone irisin affects amyloid beta pathology.

As reported in the journal Neuron, a team led by Se Hoon Choi, PhD, and Rudy Tanzi PhD, has uncovered promising results suggesting that irisin-based therapies might help combat AD. Read more here and check out the infographic below:

Saxena Receives Mentoring Award and Takes on New Research and Innovation Role

Richa Saxena, PhD, Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport MGH Research Scholar 2017-2022, received the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Saxena was also named the new vice chair of research and innovation for the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Mass General.

Dr. Saxena’s team is studying biological and physiologic mechanisms linking circadian rhythms, melatonin and sleep to type 2 diabetes, neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. She also examines the genetic basis of preeclampsia and links of preeclampsia to cardio-metabolic disease. Learn more.

Tweets of the Week

This Week in Mass General History

After 30 Operations, Badly Injured Man Has a New Face with Scalp and Hair

Sept. 4, 1909 (The Saturday Blade)—Stephen Calabro, 25 years old, of Quincy, was discharged from the Massachusetts General Hospital literally with a new face and scalp from a series of operations among the most remarkable in surgical history, extending over a period of three years, and done as a work of scientific interest by Dr. Charles A Porter, of the Harvard Medical School.

Aside from the operation, which is one of the most remarkable in skin grafting, Calabro has been given a good head of hair in the bargain. The treatment covered a period of three years, during which the patient took ether no less than thirty times.

Calabro had been severely injured in a fireworks explosion at the age of 19 and developed massive scarring on his face, hands and arms. Below is a photo taken a few months before his discharge.

Mass General Program Provides Injured Soldiers With Useful and Profitable Trades

September 4, 1917 (New York Sun) – A cheering bit of news for soldiers and prospective soldiers emanated yesterday from the National Society for the Promotion of Occupational Therapy, the paper reports.

It was said by members of the society that in the advanced stage of surgery it is scarcely possible for a person to be so badly wounded or crippled that he cannot be helped and trained by artificial means.

This assertion followed Miss Susan E. Tracy’s discussion of results obtained at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where men who have lost both arms and legs have been taught useful and profitable trades, according to the report.