Our friends over at California's stem cell agency yesterday shared the story of one of the speakers at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), taking place now in Boston. The speaker was Andres Trevino, father of a little boy who was born with an extremely rare life-threatening disease and successfully treated using his sister's cord blood stem cells.
Trevino's story is a dramatic one, and I quite liked what Kevin McCormack wrote of such stories at the end of his post:
At CIRM we know how important it is to engage patients and patient advocates in everything we do (see our Stories of Hope page). Their voices, their stories, are a constant reminder why we do the work we do, to find treatments and cures for diseases and conditions that are currently incurable. At ISSCR, Andres’ voice rang out clear and strong, reminding everyone that even the best research is just a means to an end, and that end is saving lives.
Photo courtesy of Children's Hospital Boston
