Revolutionary Therapies

For author Don C Reed, father of a paralyzed son, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is the greatest medical advance since penicillin.REVOLUTIONARY THERAPIES is Reed's third book about the $3 billion stem cell program.Voted into law in November 2004, CIRM is now running out of money.Should its funding be renewed? Thereby hangs a tale, or rather several dozen of them, for each of the book's 71 short chapters is framed by a yarn or vignette.The factual background is accurate, vetted by the scientists, but Reed's goal is clearly both entertainment and education.A favorite example is a little girl named Evie, imprisoned in a plastic bubble: her body's immune system did not work, and she would die outside. She joined a CIRM clinical trial ... Imagine how Evie's parents felt — when she got well.Some stories are comical, like 'How Stem Cell Research Saved My Car'; others surprising, like the comparison between politics and the giant crocodile Gustave; others are tragic or inspiring: but all point to this: More than 100 million Americans suffer chronic disease, causing mountains of medical debt — and the only way to reduce that expense ($3 trillion last year) — is cure.Related Link(s)Contents: Introduction: The Odds Against the California Stem Cell Program The Silent Hurricane Uncle Ben's Kidneys Blindness for the Old So, You Want to be a Stem Cell Scientist? The One-Leg Placebo Can We Lower the Prices of Medicine and Therapies? 'Tesi': Or, How to Engineer an Intestine Fighting Rett Syndrome The Disease Which Caused a Revolution? Leader of the Board Hitting Yourself in the Chest The Cost of Doing Nothing The ATM Disease Preventing Medical Bankruptcy? New Babies, New Scientists Secrets for Free Speaking Before Those Who Oppose The First 500 Pounds — And Donald Kohn Why Fetal Cell Research Must be Allowed 'Told Your Child is Going to Die...' Flat Feet and Neuropathy Battling Schizophrenia Of Werewolves, Plague, and the Zika Virus Getting All the Cancer Two Bulldogs Other People's Pain: Fighting Bowel Disease Building Bone Density Money, Hope, and Huntington's A Better Rat? 'Tuesdays with Morrie': Battling ALS Punching at Parkinson's Arthritis Champions Marching for Science? Blood, Blood, Blood! Someone Who Gets Things Done The Voice of CIRM Adventures on Bridges: Humboldt State University Inside Gloria's Heart Fighting Beside Other Countries Jobs and New Money Scars: By Moray Eels and Other Causes Battling Duchenne In Which Stem Cell Research Saves My Car Should Scientists Run for Office? The Strangest Thing Inside My Head Of Crocodiles, and Politics Raja's Story To More Swiftly Heal a Broken Bone? Surprises, Awkward and Otherwise The Man with the Plan to Assassinate Cancer? Lung Cancer, and the Bent Cigarette Introducing Madame President Fighting Bladder Cancer Sickle Cell — And Insults? Two Diseases, One Therapy? Gloria at Home Of CIRM, and Buying My House Cooperation with the Capitol The Christmas Truce Alexander's Challenge The Smallest Miracle Interview with the Founder: Bob Klein The Big Bang Theory, CIRM, and a Dolphin Named Spock For My Son The ISSCR Adventure The Most Terrible Disease Body as Battlefield: Clinical Studies Funded by CIRM More Victims Than Five Kinds of Cancer? Vertigo, Chickens, and Maybe Great News A World without CIRM? What We Must Do Afterword Name Index Subject Index Readership: Stem cell researchers; patient advocates, students, scientists in biomed field, parents of children with disabilities, soldiers with injuries; Parkinson's, diabetes and spinal cord injury survivors, fundraisers for medical causes; for anyone with a chronic disease.Diabetes;Cancer;CIRM;Chronic Disease;Disability;Paralysis;Scientist;Rett;Cystic Fibrosis;Alpha Thalassemia;Bankruptcy; Donald Kohn;Elizabeth Warren;Neuropathy;Schizophrenia;Plague;Zika Virus;Huntington's;ALS;Blood;Parkinson's;Bridges Program;Scars;Sclerosis0Key Features: Complex science told in a high school level vocabulary; brief interviews with...