Revolutionary Therapies: How The California Stem Cell Program Saved Lives, Eased Suffering - And Changed The Face Of Medicine Forever

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&apos;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&apos;s 71 short chapters is framed by a yarn or vignette.The factual background is accurate, vetted by the scientists, but Reed&apos;s goal is clearly both entertainment and education.A favorite example is a little girl named Evie, imprisoned in a plastic bubble: her body&apos;s immune system did not work, and she would die outside. She joined a CIRM clinical trial … Imagine how Evie&apos;s parents felt &#x2014; when she got well.Some stories are comical, like &apos;How Stem Cell Research Saved My Car&apos;; 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 &#x2014; and the only way to reduce that expense ($3 trillion last year) &#x2014; is cure.Related Link(s)<b>Contents:</b> <ul><li>Introduction: The Odds Against the California Stem Cell Program</li><li>The Silent Hurricane</li><li>Uncle Ben&apos;s Kidneys</li><li>Blindness for the Old</li><li>So, You Want to be a Stem Cell Scientist?</li><li>The One-Leg Placebo</li><li>Can We Lower the Prices of Medicine and Therapies?</li><li>&apos;Tesi&apos;: Or, How to Engineer an Intestine</li><li>Fighting Rett Syndrome</li><li>The Disease Which Caused a Revolution?</li><li>Leader of the Board</li><li>Hitting Yourself in the Chest</li><li>The Cost of Doing Nothing</li><li>The ATM Disease</li><li>Preventing Medical Bankruptcy?</li><li>New Babies, New Scientists</li><li>Secrets for Free</li><li>Speaking Before Those Who Oppose</li><li>The First 500 Pounds &#x2014; And Donald Kohn</li><li>Why Fetal Cell Research Must be Allowed</li><li>&apos;Told Your Child is Going to Die…&apos;</li><li>Flat Feet and Neuropathy</li><li>Battling Schizophrenia</li><li>Of Werewolves, Plague, and the Zika Virus</li><li>Getting <u>All</u> the Cancer</li><li>Two Bulldogs</li><li>Other People&apos;s Pain: Fighting Bowel Disease</li><li>Building Bone Density</li><li>Money, Hope, and Huntington&apos;s</li><li>A Better Rat?</li><li>&apos;Tuesdays with Morrie&apos;: Battling ALS</li><li>Punching at Parkinson&apos;s</li><li>Arthritis Champions</li><li>Marching for Science?</li><li>Blood, Blood, Blood!</li><li>Someone Who Gets Things Done</li><li>The Voice of CIRM</li><li>Adventures on Bridges: Humboldt State University</li><li>Inside Gloria&apos;s Heart</li><li>Fighting Beside Other Countries</li><li>Jobs and New Money</li><li>Scars: By Moray Eels and Other Causes</li><li>Battling Duchenne</li><li>In Which Stem Cell Research Saves My Car</li><li>Should Scientists Run for Office?</li><li>The Strangest Thing Inside My Head</li><li>Of Crocodiles, and Politics</li><li>Raja&apos;s Story</li><li>To More Swiftly Heal a Broken Bone?</li><li>Surprises, Awkward and Otherwise</li><li>The Man with the Plan to Assassinate Cancer?</li><li>Lung Cancer, and the Bent Cigarette</li><li>Introducing Madame President</li><li>Fighting Bladder Cancer</li><li>Sickle Cell &#x2014; And Insults?</li><li>Two Diseases, One Therapy?</li><li>Gloria at Home</li><li>Of CIRM, and Buying My House</li><li>Cooperation with the Capitol</li><li>The Christmas Truce</li><li>Alexander&apos;s Challenge</li><li>The Smallest Miracle</li><li>Interview with the Founder: Bob Klein</li><li>The Big Bang Theory, CIRM, and a Dolphin Named Spock</li><li>For My Son</li><li>The ISSCR Adventure</li><li>The Most Terrible Disease</li><li>Body as Battlefield: Clinical Studies Funded by CIRM</li><li>More Victims Than Five Kinds of Cancer?</li><li>Vertigo, Chickens, and Maybe Great News</li><li>A World without CIRM?</li><li>What We Must Do</li><li>Afterword</li><li>Name Index</li><li>Subject Index</li></ul><br><b>Readership:</b> Stem cell researchers; patient advocates, students, scientists in biomed field, parents of children with disabilities, soldiers with injuries; Parkinson&apos;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&apos;s;ALS;Blood;Parkinson&apos;s;Bridges Program;Scars;Sclerosis0<b>Key Features:</b><ul><li>Complex science told in a high school level vocabulary; brief interviews with many top stem cell scientists</li><li>Makes clear the vital necessity for public investment in research</li><li>Controversial topics (fetal cell research, etc.) detailed in non-threatening manner</li></ul>