IT IS a tale so common in medical journalism that it has become a cliché: the scientist seeking a cure for someone they love.
Cliché notwithstanding, in the story of how stem cells became medicine’s next big thing, human interest makes for a compelling narrative. Harvard biologist Doug Melton, for example, set out to coax stem cells to become insulin-producing pancreas cells after his baby developed type 1 diabetes.
Melton is just one of the protagonists in this tale, be they scientists, politicians or fund-raisers, driven by the personal motive. That’s unsurprising when you think about the number of diseases…
