38 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
FROM LEFT: STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE; COURTESY OF SONIA COONTZ; RICHARD CARRASCO/KECK MEDICINE OF USCStanford Medical Center
in the heart of Silicon
Valley. “I thought I must
have gotten the exam
wrong. I couldn’t believe
she got that kind of
recovery in 12 hours.”
Also in the study was Sonia Coontz, who, at 31, had
a severe stroke that impacted movement of her right
arm and leg, and garbled her speech. After receiving
the treatment two years ago, she experienced quick
relief. She was able to speak clearly and was walking
better within days. Coontz has since married, and in
September 2016, she gave birth to a healthy boy.
“I did not expect them to recover,” Steinberg admits.
Instead of turning into neurons and forming synapses
— the junctures where signals pass from one nerve cell
to another — the modified stem cells seemed to control
swelling and stimulate nerve growth and the forma-
tion of new blood vessels, Steinberg says. Following
the release of the results, his office was deluged with
thousands of emails and phone calls from desperate
patients and families. But even though the results were
encouraging, the study was not a total success; only
seven of the 18 participants experienced significant
improvement. Stanford researchers are in the middle
of a larger trial (which will involve up to 156 patients)
that might provide more definitive answers.LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
After the Maricopa car crash, Kris Boesen spent five
weeks at a local hospital. In April 2016, he was ferried
to USC’s Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles for
the stem cell surgery. Upon arrival, his muscles from
the neck down were largely unresponsive. He was
hooked up to a feeding tube. It took three people to
seat him on the edge of his hospital bed, with one hold-
ing his head. The upright position caused his blood
pressure to tank.
Doctors had warned him and his parents there were
no guarantees. The stem cell procedure on his spine
could rob him of what little mobility he had left, and
the foreign tissue could clump together, forming a
tumor. But Boesen saw it as his only chance of getting
his life back. He clenched a pen in his teeth and signed
the consent form.
For Liu, the USC neurosurgeon wielding the scalpel,
the operation itself was the culmination of decades of
research by scientists around the world. In the oper-
ating room, Liu carefully sliced open the skin at the
back of Boesen’s neck. He cut open the tough, protec-
tive membrane around the thicket of nerve fibers that
comprise the spinal cord and made a small nick. He
carefully inserted a needle into the tiny incision. Slowly,
he emptied the attached syringe — full of a thick, pasty
substance composed of 10 million stem cells — into the
cavity where Boesen’s spinal cord was crushed.“We now have the ability to culture and isolate stem
cells in a much more elegant and sophisticated way.
We now know much more about how the cells work
and how they best become integrated into the circuits
of the brain.” – Gary SteinbergGary Steinberg led the
Stanford study that
included Coontz.Liu examines an X-ray of Boesen’s spine. The surgery he
performed was the culmination of decades of research.Coontz performs physical
therapy on her right arm.