Examples of medical advances that led to major discoveries

[rowkem]

Basically, I'm wondering what some of the medical and health related advances that have lead to even great discoveries? This is happening all the time but, I'm looking for some specific examples. Thanks,

 

[berkeman]

Initial X-ray machines lead to digital CAT scan technology and MRI technology, which have lead to many important diagnostic tools and discoveries. And some offshoots of imaging technology may have even more diagnostic usefulness (like heart imaging in real-time), and brain activity imaging...

 

[Tsu]

Check out PET/CT(Positron Emission Tomography combined with Computerized Tomography). If I were just now getting into the Imaging field, I'd want to do this. I think it's 'going places'.

 

[Moonbear]

One of my favorites, just because I know one of the people who did the seminal work in this and got to hear his stories of the research climate during WWII...the discovery of the estrogen receptor to explain how steroid hormones were acting through receptor-mediated mechanisms. This started out just beneficial to understanding reproductive functions, and has led to development of drugs to treat hormone-dependent cancers (such as tamoxifen to treat breast cancer).

 

[gravenewworld]

I thought they modeled robotics off of all the human anatomy in things like knees and elbows.

 

[Danger]

I'm not sure if this counts or not, but the accidental discovery that moldy bread kills microbes led directly to the 'invention' of penicillin.