Michael and Mary Sue Shannon, Mayo Clinic Philanthropic Partners, Denver
"We are honored to partner with Mayo Clinic in our support of regenerative medicine. It is a fascinating field.
"The work Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., has recently done in his cardiology practice — to grow heart muscle and get it to regenerate itself, without the risk of serious rejection — is going to transform the country's health care, if not the world's health care.
"But a distinguishing characteristic about Mayo is not only the research. It also has a patient volume and a practice ability to test the efficacy of the discoveries. It's one thing to have research capability, which Mayo excels in, but it's another to also have a care-delivery system in which you can very carefully test these ideas and be able to do that on a large enough scale to be meaningful.
"At Mayo, solutions aren't just isolated in the research. They're actually putting them into action. And that's unique." — Michael and Mary Sue Shannon
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