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Browsing by Author "Gorecki, Elizabeth"

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    Engineering Cardiac Tissue
    (2010-04-21) Gorecki, Elizabeth
    There are currently 5.7 million Americans living with heart failure and 670,000 new cases diagnosed each year. One reason for heart failure is weakened, dead or scarred tissue on the heart as a result of myocardial infarction. Heart transplant could be a useful therapy, but the effects of rejection, the need to take immunosuppressant drugs and the dire lack of available tissue are all deterrents to transplantation. A solution to some patient’s transplant needs lies in the creation of a tissue graft that could be placed over the injured heart tissue to help repair the patient’s original heart. A graft that avoids rejection by the patient’s immune system would greatly enhance the healing process. Bioartificial tissues created with a patient’s own cells are a solution to creating a graft of heart tissue that would avoid rejection. There are many artificial products commercially available that may serve as a scaffold for tissue growth. The Taylor lab has developed a method to obtain scaffold, called extracellular matrix, from biological tissues by perfusion with a detergent to remove cellular constituents. I have been working with members of the Taylor lab to compare the growth of cardiac cells on this extracellular matrix to growth on an artificial collagen sponge, which may provide insight into the effects of native verses non-native scaffold composition on the growth of cells in vitro. This insight could help to create cardiac patches that may help to alleviate suffering and loss of life due to heart failure.
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    The Physiology of the Creighton Model Fertility Care System: Physiologic Knowledge of Patients and Their Appreciation For Their Chosen Fertility Management or Family Planning System
    (2012-02-14) Gorecki, Elizabeth;
    Today, fertility management is an issue impacting 99% of the adult population in the USA. Nearly all sexually experienced American women have used some method of contraception to manage their fertility: 99% in 2006–2008. [34] Oral contraceptives are the most popular method but often produce side effects. The Creighton Model Fertility Care System (CrMS) is an alternative with no side effects and is comparatively effective. The CrMS has method and use effectiveness rates comparable to those of oral contraceptives (99.78%-99.66%, 97%-92% respectively for OCs and 99.5%, 96.8% respectively for CrMS). [31,22] It is intriguing that the CrMS has only one fifth to one third the discontinuation rate after one year that oral contraceptives do (11.3%[22] for CrMS compared to 54.1%[31] or 30% [34] for OCs). The conclusions of this study suggest that patients appreciate learning about their biology and are satisfied and confident using this biology to manage their fertility through FABMs such as the CrMS. This may be a fertility management method with a wider appeal for patients looking with any of the following characteristics which were appreciated by the participants of this study: strengthening of communication and relationship with their partner because of shared fertility management responsibility, the natural basis of the method, the relief of problems experienced with hormonal birth control, the alignment with religious and moral values, the versatility of the method to both achieve and avoid pregnancy, and increased diagnostic power for women‟s health and infertility issues, and the method‟s low monetary cost, effectiveness, and simplicity. Each of these areas of appreciation may contribute to the lower discontinuation rates of CrMS users compared to hormonal birth control users. The CrMS could be an effective fertility management method for hormonal birth control users who are dissatisfied with their use of hormonal birth control as a fertility management method.