THE Nobel Prize in Physiology-Medicine has been awarded to two scientists for their discovery of micro-RNA (mRNA), which “helps determine how cells develop and function, and malfunction.”
A sample of the benefits to mankind of mRNA is the mind-boggling speed at which COVID-19 was developed. The uninformed members of society even suspected “dangerous short-cuts” were taken to develop the COVID-19 virus, which the used as a reason for rejecting the vaccines.
Vaccines used to take 5 to 10 years or more to develop. With the new mRNA technology, vaccines can now be developed within a few months. That is a giant leap for mankind. The “new understanding of how diseases occur opens the possibilities for reversing them.”
The recipients of the Nobel Prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm last Monday, October 7 were Doctor Victor Ambros of Hanover, N.H., the Silverman professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts, and Gary Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Mass Gen research Institute.
Since its discovery in the 1960s and its first introduction in 1993 by Ambros and his group, it was in 2010 when the first human trial for an mRNA vaccine was conducted (for rabies) in 2013. Since then, mRNA technology has already saved billions of lives around the world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and quadrillions and more in the future.
Indeed, the Nobel Prize award to Ambros and Ruvkun is overwhelmingly well-deserved!
Denton A. Cooley: An icon
Another iconic giant medical contribution: One of the world’s megastars and internationally famous pioneer-innovators in cardiac surgery is Denton Arthur Cooley, MD, FACS, the Houston surgeon who performed the first successful human heart transplant in the world in 1968, and also the world’s first (1969) and second (1981) total artificial heart transplants. In 1978, he implanted the first left ventricular assist device to help the failing heart, as a bridge (while the patient waited for a suitable donor) to heart transplantation. Dr. Cooley was a trailblazer on the cutting edge of cardiac surgery. He died in his home in Houston on November 18, 2016, at the age of 96.
In 1972, I was blessed to be appointed by Dr. Cooley as a Fellow in Cardiac Surgery at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, which world-renowned hospital he founded in 1962. This was where he performed those groundbreaking historical surgeries. His patients, a few of them international dignitaries, came all over from Europe, Asia, Middle East, etc. besides the United States.
On June 2, 1972, as the president of the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgery Society, an exclusive assembly of more than 800 cardiac surgeons from 54 countries who trained under Dr. Cooley at the Texas Heart Institute, I (at the podium; see photo) had the honor to present to Dr. and Mrs. Cooley the Charter of Foundation of the Society at the special annual gala of the Texas Heart Institute at the Warwick.
During my Fellowship in 1972, Dr. Cooley and the Fellows in his team, were doing between 12-14 coronary bypass and heart valve surgeries in 4 surgical suites each day. Dr. Cooley “oversaw as many as 30 open-heart surgeries a day during his peak of surgical career,” doing his last operation in 2007.
Dr. Cooley authored volumes of cardiovascular papers and books. Among his countless awards are The Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President Ronal Reagan in 1984; National Medal of Technology presented by President Bill Clinton in 1998; Rene Leriche Award, the highest honor of the International Surgical Society in 1967; Theodore Roosevelt Award, Golden Plate Award, Grand Hamdan International Award form Medical science, etc.
The contribution of Dr. Cooley and his now countless cardiac surgeon-proteges around the world will be a part of his grand legacy of service to mankind in the field of cardiac surgery.
Dr. Cooley was gracious enough to write the Foreword for my first book, “Let’s Stop ‘Killing’ Our Children,” pre-emptive and pro-active strategies in healthy lifestyle and disease prevention (2011, Xlibris: Amazon.com).
To be chosen by Dr. Cooley and accepted “as one of few” as his Cardiac Surgery Fellows at the prestigious Texas Heart Institute, be mentored by him, and be that personally close to him as a friend, was a blessing and an inspiring privilege for me.
Dr. Denton Arthur Cooley and his contributions will be permanently etched in history and his greatness will forever warm the hearts of those whose lives he had touched.
The whole world, mankind, is better because of great thinkers, intellectual minds, inventors, like Dr. Cooley, whose wisdom and love of fellowmen have transformed them to “builders for eternity.”
Today, at the lobby of the Texas Heart Institute, there stands a giant golden heart symbol of the Texas Heart Institute, and not far from it a plaque with a poem by Robert Lee Sharpe:
A Bag of Tools
Isn’t it strange
That princes and kings
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules,
And each must make –
ere life is flown –
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, a Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus based in Northwest Indiana and Las Vegas, Nevada, is an international medical lecturer/author, Health Advocate, newspaper columnist, and chairman of the Filipino United Network-USA, a 501(c)3 humanitarian foundation in the United States. He was a recipient of the Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash Award in 1995, presented by then Indiana Governor, U.S. senator, and later a presidential candidate, Evan Bayh. Other Sagamore past awardees include President Harry S. Truman, President George HW Bush, Muhammad Ali, Astronaut Gus Grissom, scientists, and educators. (Wikipedia). Websites: FUN8888.com, Today.SPSAtoday.com, and philipSchua.com; Amazon.com (“Where is My America?”); Email: [email protected].
