Discovery's Edge, Mayo Clinic's Online Research Magazine

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Discovery's Edge, Mayo Clinic's online research magazine, highlights stories of leading medical investigators. Many features cover ongoing projects long before they reach the journals. Science writers and medical reporters seeking new story ideas will want to check out the articles, which span a wide range of conditions and feature visuals they can use in their own publications.

Read about (links open in new window):

Building a Cellular Band-Aid
If a certain type of repair cell helps a person's damaged blood vessels heal, what would happen if a lot of those cells were used at one time — to create a vascular bandage? Mayo researchers are studying ways to grow endothelial cells and reintroduce them at an injury site in the body. It's part of a multi-pronged approach by cardiovascular investigators to battle blood clots.

Green Tea and Leukemia
Mayo investigators took the healthful benefits of green tea a step further: starting in the lab, they advanced a key component of this Asian folk treatment into a potential medicine in the fight against leukemia.

Predicting Brittle Bone Breaks
Mayo researchers defined osteoporosis as a treatable disease. Now they have developed a way to identify weak spots in the bones of living persons, pinpointing where bones are at risk of breaking and treating them before a fracture occurs.

E. coli: In the Right Hands, a Great Research Tool
The bacteria causing havoc around the country also have a good side. E.coli, it turns out, are excellent subject matter for studying how DNA works, especially in genetic diseases.

View the entire magazine at www.discoverysedge.mayo.edu.

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