Entertainers like Taylor Swift know the power of an opening act to engage an audience and create a warm welcome for the star performer. When it comes to medical implants, Michigan State University researchers have discovered that using a drug that is a metabolic inhibitor performs like an opening act and makes the body more receptive to medical devices such as pacemakers, replacement joints and dental implants.

“When we surgically place an implant into a human, there will always be an immune response and there’s a chance the implant will be rejected,” said Ashley Makela, senior research associate at the MSU Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering. “Our research sought to find novel ways to stop that rejection.”