A new addition to the PBS Independent Lens documentary series, “Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita,” explores the developing field in of stem cell research through personal stories.
The documentary centers on Jack Kessler, MD, Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Director of the Feinberg Neuroscience Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL; the Institute is a part of the Feinberg School of Medicine, which is a Research!America member. whose Kessler’s daughter broke her spine during a skiing accident and now must use a wheel chair. Kessler discusses how the accident motivated him to pursue research on how to use stem cells to repair broken spinal tissue.
The film also follows the day-to-day routine of Caroline, the daughter of one of Kessler’s colleagues, who sustained a C-5 spinal cord injury in a swimming accident and now has very limited use of her hands and no use of her lower body. Caroline says in the video that when she starts to think about stem cell research and what it could do, it makes it hard for her to be content in her chair.
Kessler and the two graduate students who the documentary follows use a nano-engineered material created by Kessler’s colleague, Dr. Samuel Stupp, PhD, professor of materials science, chemistry and medicine at Northwestern University, to repair lesions in the spinal cord. The material, a gel, acts as like a scaffolding down which axons, or spinal nerves, can grow across an injury site in place of an extracellular matrix, which is damaged during an injury.
By the end of the film, Kessler’s research team is able to get 80% of the axons in the gel-treated test mice to enter the injury site, and 1/3 to go all the way through the lesion. Before they can get their work published, however, they must try different techniques to prove that it works.
“No one treatment is going to solve these very complicated problems,” Kessler said.
One common thread which binds the storylines together is the many obstacles to stem cell research. Kessler says one of the hardest things about his work is the frustration with peoples’ misconceptions of the potential of a zygote for life. Kessler recounts how the concept of the earth being the center of the universe was once considered extremely controversial, and compares this revolution in science to the revolution in medicine he believes stem cells will bring.
“The same thing is true now with a lot of issues about stem cells where there are myths being told about stem cells. People firmly believe things that simply are not true, and we have to change attitudes,” Kessler said.
The film addresses ethical concerns surrounding stem cell research, chiefly through footage of class discussions with bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, PhD, one of Kessler’s colleagues at Northwestern University’s Center for Bioethics, Science and Society. Zoloth’s students question the moral status of an embryo by examining different religions’ views on the point of conception, and Kessler’s class elucidates the difference between conception and fertilization.
“If you could heal a spinal cord injury, how could you not want to?” Zoloth asks. She challenges the listener to define what it means to be human, to be free, and what we should do about the suffering of others.
Kessler’s views are clear.
“What makes me human is not my suffering. What makes me human is my yearning to heal,” Kessler says. “If you see somebody in pain, it’s your job to try and help them … I absolutely reject anyone who would tell me that it’s wrong to try and alleviate suffering.”
No matter the view on whether stem cell research is right or wrong, Kessler says this science is still terra incognita, or new landscape.
“It’s very easy to think things done, and very hard to actually go do in the laboratory,” Kessler says. “Patience is just something that you have no choice you have to have. Whether it is a change in our daily routine or a change in the way we think about the entire world, change is always difficult to deal with, and science does change the world. It forces us to begin to think how we’re going to live our lives in a different way.”