In September 2018, Cherron Gilmore sat in a North Carolina hospital and was told, "There's nothing more we can do for you." The 37 year-old mother was in heart failure from postpartum cardiomyopathy, and she was rejected for a transplant for the fourth time. Her last chance was a referral to VCU Health, one of the most active sites in the country for total artificial hearts. Arriving by medevac on Sept. 6, she was in the operating room within four days for a total artificial heart transplant. Three weeks later, a donor heart was located, and Cherron became the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center's 600th heart transplant patient. Today, she's back to being a mom of three. "It just feels like all is okay in the world now."

Blood cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma make up about 10 percent of all cancers. But detecting these cancers can be complicated - and very expensive. Researchers at VCU are out to change that. Physics professor Jason Reed, Ph.D., and his co-investigators at VCU Massey Cancer Center are studying a new approach called DNA barcoding. With this method, individual DNA strands are extracted from a solution, and tiny nanoparticles are attached to them. Then, nanotechnology is used to determine if the sample has a certain kind of mutation. The result: faster, more accurate results at a significantly lower cost.

Kathryn Gouthro grew up in Yellowstone Park. It's also where she got her routine medical care as a child. This past year, she returned there as a fourth-year med student to complete a monthlong clinical rotation with the park's medical staff. Working at two of the park's clinics, Gouthro learned how to care for patients using limited resources. What she lacked in technology, she made up for with communication, talking to patients extensively about their lifestyles and family history. Gouthro is enrolled in fmSTAT, the School of Medicine's Family Medicine Scholars Training and Admission Track for students interested in family medicine. She plans to become a rural family doctor after completing a seven-year commitment to the U.S. Army.

Jacob Worley was born with a condition that caused him to have a hole in his heart, which was repaired at Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU when he was a newborn. "Jacob has what's called Tetralogy of Fallot, which is a combination of four problems, but one of the biggest is an obstruction of blood flow to the lungs," says Kerri Carter, M.D., Jacob's cardiologist. At age 8, Jacob underwent a second surgery to repair the enlargement of his heart. Today, he's doing well, and the Children's Hospital Foundation Heart Center team continues to track his heart, his heart valves - and his latest dance moves.