Apparently the muscle cells in fruit fly wings are astoundingly similar to human cardiac muscle cells. Who knew?
Well, a professor at my daughter's university did, and he's using a strain of fruit flies with defective wings to study the super-rare genetic problem that caused her to need a heart transplant three years ago. What amazing luck!
She somehow managed to sweet-talk herself into an internship in his lab, even though she's only a sophomore and doesn't know how to do much yet. But she's eager to learn, and thrilled to be potentially finding a way to spare other kids from going through what she did.
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