Have you ever had to think to make your heart beat? Of course not! The heart is an incredible organ that keeps on pumping while you carry on your normal day. In this class we'll go over how the heart beats, why the heart beats, and what happens when the heart beats to the beat of its own drum in certain diseases. You'll learn to love your heart!

In this class, we will discuss what happens when your heart decides to beat to the beat of its own pathogenic drum, and how such arrhythmias can be corrected using a variety of treatments and techniques, including rhythm-restoring robots!

Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels form from preexisting blood vessels. While angiogenesis is vital to vascular homeostasis, it can also be deleterious in certain injury settings, such as vascular injury and cancer. In this course, we will discuss how angiogenesis can be good and bad, depending on context. We will also discuss current therapeutic strategies for promoting or inhibiting angiogenesis.

In this class, we will discuss what happens when your heart decides to beat to the tune of its own pathogenic drum, and how such arrhythmias can be corrected using a variety of treatments and techniques, including rhythm-restoring robots!

Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in the U.S. as well as a significant risk factor for stroke. The Cox maze procedure corrects atrial fibrillation with a set of lesions that direct interfering electrical signals through a “maze” in the atria, thereby returning the heart to normal sinus rhythm. In this class we will cover the causes of atrial fibrillation and the development of the Cox maze procedure, from its conception as a crude "cut-and-sew" procedure to its transformation into an operation utilizing advanced ablative technologies, as well as robotic surgical assistance. We will explore the debate over the efficacy of these various technologies and discuss how the procedure continues to evolve today.