May 12, 2024
Feature
Unlocking Stem Cells' Cardiac Benefits
More than 20 years ago, University of Miami heart transplant cardiologist Joshua Hare became convinced that stem cells infused into heart attack patients would turn into new, healthy cells to replace damaged ones. So far, that hasn't happened. But Hare, founding director of the university's Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, still believes that stem cells represent a future in which cardiac care involves less medication and fewer surgeries.
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Published on 2/26/2024
Conservation Boost
The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded the Gainesville-based Alachua Conservation Trust $25 million for its Lake to Lagoon conservation program in Flagler, Lake and Volusia counties. The award will help support the use of research-based management practices and advance land protection in the region.
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Published on 2/26/2024
A Second Chance at Life
One Friday night in 2019, Roy Reid fell asleep on the couch while watching a movie. “At about two in the morning, I wake up with the worst pain I've ever had in my life — as if someone had punched a hole through my chest,” Reid says. “I run into the bedroom, wake up my wife and say, ‘I think I'm having a heart attack, we need to get to the emergency room.'”
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Published on 2/26/2024
Knight's New Leader
A veteran journalist and Miami native has been tapped as the president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Former USA Today publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth spent more than 30 years working as a journalist, starting as an editorial assistant for the Associated Press in 1994. She spent 26 years with Gannett, moving to its corporate offices in 2009 to work on digital and audience transformation.
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Published on 2/22/2024
Fine Arts
An international center for the arts is coming to Naples. Theater in the Garden, a multipurpose space featuring a 900-seat indoor theater and outside amphitheater in a landscaped setting, will be the first location of the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation outside of Italy.
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Published on 2/21/2024
Defending the Shore
Their inventors compare them to air bags or speed bumps in the sea. And they just might be the future of fighting coastal flooding in Florida. They're called Seahives, and they're a new kind of artificial reef being developed and field-tested by researchers at the University of Miami. They're 18-foot-long, hexagonal-shaped hollow tubes that get stacked in pyramid-like shapes on the seafloor just offshore. The 2,500-pound concrete structures are perforated to allow seawater to flow through them.
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Published on 2/21/2024
AI, Captain
Years ago, serial entrepreneur Nathan Heber and his wife, dermatologist Jordana Herschthal, took a bareboat charter — where you rent a boat and crew it yourself — in the British Virgin Islands. “We were very underqualified. We were new sailors,” Heber recalls. But, he adds, “We had the time of our lives.”
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Published on 2/21/2024
Road Doctor
As an engineering student, University of Central Florida Professor Necati Catbas studied structural damage caused by earthquakes. He wanted to learn how buildings could be made more resilient and safer.
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Published on 2/21/2024
Donor Science
Artificial intelligence might be all the rage these days, but Michael Peterman was an early adopter of the technology. In the early 2000s, the Naples native was working at a Fort Myers company called AccuData and started closely watching what tech giants like Amazon and Netflix were doing with all the data they were collecting. “It was around the time when some juggernauts in Silicon Valley were launching their early forms of machine learning,” he says.
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Published on 2/21/2024
AI's Emerging Role in Cardiac Care
Sumit Verma is a board-certified specialist in cardiac electrophysiology and cardiovascular disease with Baptist Health Care in Pensacola. In a recent interview with FLORIDA TREND, he discussed the impact that...
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Published on 2/20/2024
AI in Action
As we go about our daily lives, artificial intelligence is everywhere. It's sorting through our e-mail for spam and recognizing our faces to unlock our smartphones. It's tracking our steps and reminding us to take deep breaths. It's mapping out the best route to get to that business meeting across town and rerouting us in real time when traffic gets snarled.
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Published on 2/19/2024
Florida Icon: Lee Brian Schrager
I always worked in restaurants. When I was 10, 11 years old, I used to bag Chinese takeout food, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, in a local popular Chinese restaurant. I worked in snack bars and movie theaters. I worked at Swensen's ice cream parlor, (and was a) valet car parker at a fine-dining restaurant. There was always something about the hospitality industry. The people in it are very special. And you know, I've always enjoyed wine and food.
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Published on 2/19/2024
Detecting Trouble
The sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) incidents with Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin and college basketball player Bronny James brought national attention to the often-fatal heart problem. Without quick CPR or automatic external defibrillator use to get the heart beating again, 90% of people who go into SCA outside of a hospital will die.
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Published on 2/15/2024
Education Guru
Education was calling for Adam Giery. His mother was a teacher — he always dreamed of following in her footsteps — and he was inspired by his own teachers. “I'm a product of an American public education system that just wouldn't expect less from me,” Giery explains. “My teachers were there for me, my teachers set a very high bar and when given the choice to pursue a profession, ‘teacher' felt like the answer.”
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Published on 2/14/2024
Problem Solver
As a kid in Argentina, Jose Navia recalls, he liked finding ways to fix broken things around the house. He also was exposed to the world of medicine. His mother was a midwife. His uncle was a cardiac surgeon.
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Published on 2/14/2024
A Window on Risk
Pregnancy is hard on the body, with 10-15% of women experiencing a complication themselves or with their baby. In some ways, pregnancy is essentially a stress test for the mother, with the potential to forecast significant health risks down the road.
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Published on 2/14/2024
Flower Power
Valentine's Day is already in full bloom at Miami International Airport, which imports more flowers than any other airport in the United States
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Published on 2/13/2024
Heart Health
Approximately two in 10 deaths in Florida are caused by heart disease, making it the No. 1 killer in the state.
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Published on 2/12/2024
Daycare Dilemma
Part I of the 2024 legislative preview in the January issue of Florida Trend explored the day-to-day realities of working Floridians struggling with rising housing, insurance and food costs. This month, we examine Florida's childcare crisis and what solutions may be on the horizon.
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Published on 2/12/2024
Southwest Florida's economic forecast for 2024
“Over the past few years, we have moved from a world of disinflation and ultra-easy monetary policy to one with high inflation, conventional monetary policy and rising interest rates. While England may have crowned a new king, cash continues to reign supreme here in the U.S. Since the Fed began hiking interest rates in 2021, we have seen our J.P. Morgan Private Bank clients increase their cash at the expense of stocks."
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Published on 1/31/2024
Northwest Florida's economic forecast for 2024
In the fall of 2018, Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City was devastated by a direct hit from Hurricane Michael. The Category 5 storm severely damaged 484 buildings on the base, a major pilot training facility.
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Published on 1/31/2024
Targeting Skin Cancer
If you've ever spent time in a dermatologist's office in Florida, then it may feel as if skin cancer removal is practically routine in the Sunshine State.
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Published on 1/31/2024
New in Cancer Care
Diffuse midline gliomas, also known as diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas, are aggressive tumors that occur in the brainstem and each year affect about 300 children — most of them between the ages of 5 and 9. The tumors are difficult to treat because chemotherapy has a hard time penetrating the blood-brain barrier that protects the brain from toxins and pathogens.
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Published on 1/31/2024
Occupational Hazard
Once upon a time, having a dirty firefighting uniform was like a badge of honor. It meant you'd seen some heavy action.
“In the past, the dirtier your gear, the dirtier your helmet, it was like a trophy,” recalls Longboat Key Fire Chief Paul Dezzi. “Now you clean it all up to make sure you're not breathing that stuff in.”
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Published on 1/31/2024
Diversifying Cancer Research
Black men face a far greater risk of getting prostate cancer than whites, and they suffer higher mortality rates. Yet, clinical trials for new treatments disproportionately involve white men. Similarly, Black women are more susceptible to dying from triple negative breast cancer than whites, but clinical trials do not represent this.
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Published on 1/31/2024
Business Beat - Week of May 10th
