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.

Thomas Wang, M.D., has joined Vanderbilt as director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and the physician-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute.

NPR’s “All Things Considered” interviewed C. Michael Gibson, MD, about his experiences treating victims of the explosions at the Boston Marathon. Gibson, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, credited the medical teams in the field and the proximity of the emergency tent for stabilizing the wounded. “[They] may have saved innumerable lives,” he said.

Cath/EP and interventional lab professionals wondering if their pay is competitive are being offered an objective measuring stick from a new research poll, Phoenix-based Springboard Healthcare announced.

OrbusNeich today announced that data from the REMEDEE (Randomized Evaluation of an abluMinal sirolimus coatED bio-Engineered stEnt) study published online in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions demonstrated that the COMBO Dual Therapy Stent met the study’s primary endpoint and was found to be effective in controlling neointimal proliferation.

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.

The first patient in the United States has been implanted with the Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) next generation ImageReady™ MR Conditional pacing system in the SAMURAI clinical trial.

Carolinas HealthCare System’s Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute became the first in the world to implant a branched stent graft specifically designed for branch vessel repair of thoracic aortic aneurysms on Thursday. This is the first arch graft available in a clinical trial and both the device and surgical approach are novel.