Garret FitzGerald MD, FRS, chairman of the Pharmacology Department and director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded the 2013 Grand Prix Scientifique by the Institut de France.

The New York Times revisited the controversy over chelation therapy, allowing the TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) lead investigator Gervasio A. Lamas, MD, to share his observations: “If you had asked any cardiologist, to a man or to a woman, they would have said this study would be negative, and that included me and my associates. But it wasn’t, and that’s the one thing we should be focusing on.” Cardiology guru Eric Topol, MD, also weighs in.

AtheroNova Inc. (OTCBB:AHRO), a biotech company focused on the research and development of compounds to safely regress atherosclerotic plaque and improve lipid profiles in humans, today announced that John Kastelein, MD, Ph.D., Chairman of the department of vascular medicine and Strategic Chair of Genetics in Cardiovascular Disease at the Academic Medicine Center of the University of Amsterdam, has joined the Company as a member of the Medical Advisory Board and will be a Co-Principal Investigator in the Company's upcoming clinical trials. 

Darwin Labarthe, MD, MPH, PhD, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, proposes that an emphasis on cardiovascular health rather than cardiovascular disease heralds a “positive health” revolution. In a blog post on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s website, he discusses the idea of health assets. 

The Canadian Diabetes Association recommends statin therapy for patients with diabetes mellitus who are 40 years old or older in its 2013 Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Researchers at Imperial College London have designed a microchip technology that they say may help curb the obesity problem in developed nations. The chip, which presently is being tested in animals, is implanted in the gut, where it sends satiation signals to the brain. The researchers project that they will begin tests in patients in three to four years.

Of mice and men. A team from the Cleveland Clinic used animal and human studies to accumulate evidence that challenges conventional wisdom on red meat and cardiovascular disease. Red meat is still on the hook, but the culprit appears to be a byproduct of bacteria involved in the digestion of red meat. The New York Times describes the multiyear effort, including results published in Nature Medicine.

Cholesterol may play a role in the development of macular degeneration, according to a study published online in Cell Metabolism.