I JUST watched a heart rendering report about a man and his daughter who has a spinal cord injury that has made put her in a wheel chair.
The father, Dr. John Kessler, happens to be a leader in the field of stem cell research at Northwestern University. His life’s driving motivation is to see his daughter, Allison, who is paralyzed, walk again.
There’s reason to hope.
Two years ago, scientists found a way to create stem cells from ordinary skin cells. That breakthrough permits researchers study diseases in a Petri dish.
For example, skin cells from a patient with ALS have been turned into the kind of nerve cells attacked by the disease. For the first time, those living nerves can be studied outside the body to figure out what goes wrong.
The potential of stem cells makes people nervously expectant of miraculous breakthroughs, from everything to growing new cartilage for a knee, to repairing nerves along a spinal cord. The question is when will it happen? Scientists are working steadily, but no one yet knows the day of Jubilee.
Watch the videos of Dr. Kessler and his daughter, and if you’d like to learn more about stem cells, start here.
Dr. Kessler and daughter, Allison, describe the day that changed both of their lives:
A recent advance in stem cell research has allowed scientists to use human skin cells to create stem cells. Are human embryonic stem cells still needed? Watch:
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Published on March 19, 2010