The beeping vibrato of pressure monitors, mechanical rhythm of the blood pump, low hum of the oxygenator and metronomic beat measuring heart rate: These are the sounds that emanate from a complex circuit of pumps, tubes, filters and monitors called ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. ECMO moves blood outside of the body through cannulae, or tubes, to an oxygenator that provides a gas exchange in the blood, removing carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen. The oxygenated blood is then warmed to the appropriate temperature and returned to the body using rhythms that mimic a beating heart.

When disease or trauma prevent the body from performing these life-sustaining rhythms, ECMO can take over.

When used to perform living-donor nephrectomy—the removal of a kidney from a living donor for transplantation into a recipient—a robotic surgery system offers a number of benefits. For example, the donor’s stay in the hospital may be shortened and recovery may happen more quickly.

Though many such donation surgeries already are being done using a minimally invasive procedure that offers living donors similar benefits, the robotic procedure allows for additional improvements.

Wake, sleep, repeat. Day in, day out. It’s a pattern we’re so familiar with that most of us give it little, if any, thought. The sleep-wake cycle is simply one of life’s daily rhythms. In fact, it’s one of our circadian rhythms. Put simply, circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that our bodies experience over a 24-hour cycle. They affect our sleep, our body temperature, our appetite, our hormones and more. And it turns out these daily rhythms may play a key role in cancer treatment.