• In the Loop: Inside Mayo Researcher’s Parasitic Wonders

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Some of us have a hard time deciding what we want to be when we grow up. Bobbi Pritt, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Clinical Parasitology Laboratory in Rochester, never had that problem. “I definitely liked to go out and play in the dirt, and pull up worms and stuff,” Dr. Pritt recently told the Minneapolis Star Tribune of her childhood in Vermont. “I thought they were fascinating."

In the years since, that fascination has propelled Dr. Pritt to become "a world-renowned researcher of diseases caused by parasites." Especially ticks. “We can learn a lot from parasites,” she tells reporter Allie Shah, who couldn’t help noting the “giant plush-toy tick" that hangs from Dr. Pritt’s “high-powered” microscope in her lab at Mayo Clinic. “My primary goal in studying them is to learn how we can better diagnose parasitic infections and therefore improve patient lives.” Read the more about Dr. Pritt's Parasite Wonders.

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