Can fruit flies help treat stroke and transplant patients?

Las Vegas NV. Reperfusion injury takes place when an animal or an organ is starved of oxygen, then exposed to oxygen again. This occurs in strokes and organ transplants and causes many deaths per year. Now scientists at UNLV, Sable Systems International and UCSD have discovered that reperfusion injury can be induced in fruit-flies, a convenient, cheap, well-characterized model animal. The research paper describing their results will be published in PLoS ONE.