Sudden cardiac death (SCD) can affect all age groups, including young persons. While less common in the age < 35 population, the occurrence of SCD in the young raises concern, with multiple possible etiologies and often unanswered questions. While coronary artery disease is the leading cause in those > 35 years of age, the younger population faces a different subset of pathologies associated with SCD, including arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies. The tragic nature of SCD in the young entails that we explore and implement available screening methods for this population, and perform the necessary investigations such as electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiography. In this review, we not only explore the vast etiology associated with SCD in those age < 35, but emphasize evaluation methods, who is at risk, and delve into screening of SCD in potential victims and their family members, in an attempt to prevent this traumatic event. Future research must work towards establishing preventative measures in order to reduce SCD, particularly unexplained SCD in the young.

Low intrinsic stability has marred the production of psychrophilic proteins in commonly used mesophilic systems. This may lead to a lopsided bias towards the expression of the few psychrophilic proteins which can manage a stable structure at those temperatures. Of the two possible approaches to help counterpoise the expression in favour of most psychrophilic proteins, the approach we have taken is to develop a new psychrophilic host. Rather than characterizing novel strains, we plan on converting a highly characterized system in synthetic biology, E.coli, by introducing genes that confer cold-tolerance to it thereby reducing dependency on regular mesophilic hosts and possibly making it the model system for cold temperature-based systems.