And the piece of gadolinium I acquired upon the way is still used as a paperweight.

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The main contrast drug used for MRI is a silvery-white element called gadolinium.

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Larger, more rigorous clinical trials of gadolinium-texaphyrin have just started, and the approach is also being tried for prostate, pancreatic and neck tumours.

ECONOMIST: Medicinal light-swords

More experiments with the stuff in the brightest square (a combination of oxygen with the metals gallium and gadolinium) led to a surprising conclusion.

ECONOMIST: Combinatorial chemistry

Pharmacyclics has developed such an intermediary, called gadolinium-texaphyrin.

ECONOMIST: Medicinal light-swords

They were focusing on larger gadolinium molecules.

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