So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells. But in cramped university labs, a young neurobiologist with movie star good looks, a Carl Sagan-like fondness for the popular media and an entrepeneur’s nose for profits is getting tantalizingly close. Hans Keirstead is making paralyzed rats walk again by injecting them with healthy brain cells sussed from a reddish soup of human embryonic stem cells he and his colleagues have created. Keirstead hopes to apply his therapy to humans by 2006. If his ambitious timetable keeps to schedule, Keirstead’s work will be the first human embryonic stem cell treatment given to humans.
