Glossary

Windkessel Effect – The dampening effect of a large arterial vessel’s walls on the pulse pressure excursion due to the elasticity of the walls absorbing some of the pressure of the systolic wave form and transmitting it back during diastole. This helps maintain perfusion of organs during the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle.

– pathways made up by a group of proteins within the walls of cells that function to pass transduction signals into a cell. These pathways are activated by the binding of a Wnt-protein ligand to a cell wall receptor, which passes the biological signal on to an intracellular protein. Mutations of these pathways lead to a variety of diseases, including cancer.

AKA xenotransplantation: a transplantation of cells, tissues, or organs,from a one organism to another of a different species. An example would be bovine pericardium as a dural substitute in operations on humans.

Radiotherapy – XRT is a common abbreviation used in describing or speaking about radiation therapy used to treat cancers and other tumors.

a infectious disease that is transmitted from an animal to a human. The transmission can be via a vector.