Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, for instance, are harvesting stem cells from adult fat and coaxing them to turn into human bone. One day, Pennington scientists believe, stem cell research will lead to a wide array of medical applications such as reversing organ rejection and even creating new skin to heal wounds.

Meanwhile, researchers at the LSU Eye Center, part of the LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) in New Orleans, are working with colleagues from Tulane University and the LSU Biological Computation and Visualization Center on the main campus in Baton Rouge to build 3D computer models of complex eye structures. The hope is that these models will reveal how deformations in the optic nerve could lead to glaucoma, the second most common cause of blindness in the United States.

At LSUHSC in Shreveport, medical researchers are conducting experiments on mice suffering from Type II diabetes, focusing on identifying critical genes in heart and blood vessels that affect development of heart disease and congestive heart failure.

In another fascinating study, researchers at the LSUHSC School of Dentistry in New Orleans are learning more about how mothers may be passing a certain strain of bacteria to their babies by a simple kiss or the tasting of baby food with a spoon-and about how to prevent this transmission from leading to tooth decay. The bacteria take up residence in gum tissue and spring into action when children's teeth erupt.

In labs at the LSU AgCenter, scientists are studying two ancient herbal remedies in the belief the compounds they contain may hold real promise as modern treatments for combating cancer and hypertension.

University of New Orleans electrical engineers are combining data from multiple sources in an emerging field known as "information fusion" that may one day allow computers to process multiple sources of information and arrive at conclusions that override uncertainty in a split second, much like the human brain does. In another endeavor in data-crunching, computer scientists from the Laboratory for Advanced Biomedical Informatics at the southeast Shreveport campus of LSUS are using high-speed computers to help bioscientists unlock the secrets hidden amongst vast quantities of research data.