Tapping the body to fight disease
Biju Parekkadan saw his future in the plight of a newborn thousands of miles away. It was 1998, and Parekkadan, then a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, was in India on an “observership,” becoming familiar with health issues in the giant Asian nation. Parekkadan had talked with a doctor there of his research, which uses a type of adult stem cell to calm the body’s attacks on its own damaged tissue after injury. The research has potential for treating kidney and liver failure, inflammatory bowel disease, and other ailments. But Parekkadan wasn’t sure whether to continue that work or head to medical school to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a physician. So the doctor took him to the neonatal intensive care unit to show him the potential impact of his research. A baby they examined that day was healthy but had been orphaned when its mother died...