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By By Lynn Smaha, M.D.,Ph.D. Then a computer blends them into an image. The technique measures calcium in the coronary artery walls and may afford a useful estimation of the extent of disease present. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), a technique that uses powerful magnets to look inside the body, offers another noninvasive diagnostic tool, but with an added advantage. MRA, also synchronized to the heart cycle, can not only detect artery-narrowing deposits, called plaques, but may also reveal which ones are most likely to rupture and cause a heart attack, without the need to thread a catheter through an artery to the heart to deliver a dye. Exercise, or treadmill, stress tests can help doctors decide whether a person needs to undergo angiography. A new automated "scoring" may reduce the need for angiography. It uses a mathematical equation to assess stress-test data. In a recent study of 599 men, the automatic system outscored a group of expert cardiologists in determining whether significant heart disease was present. The Human Genome Project will soon identify most genes in the body, which is vital to the understanding of the relationship between genes and disease. We owe much of our new knowledge about genes to a technique known as a microarray, a fast and accurate way of assessing gene function. Genes, inherited from both parents, are the "blueprint" that shape and regulate our body. They determine our hair and eye color, as well as predisposing some individuals to certain inherited diseases, such as heart disease. Until now, researchers studying the connection between genetics and
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