Horizon (1964–…): Season 46, Episode 3 - Fix Me - full transcript

I felt really like I'd been dealt
the worst card anyone can be dealt.

I was very much like, "I'll deal with
it, but I am the most unlucky
person."

For all the wonders of modern
medicine, there are some
things it simply can't cure.

The condition is going to cause my
demise at some point.

That does actually get you in the
head you know and then you wake up
and you think, "I'm here, good."

But medical science claims to
be on the verge of a revolution,

one that could heal our bodies
in ways never imagined before.

It's actually beating. Yeah.

Isn't that cool?
That is absolutely amazing.

Horizon follows three young people
with currently untreatable
conditions who want to be cured.

The scale of the challenge is...
I really just can't begin



to get my head around
where they start.
Where do you begin with all of this?

There's no question that if there was
a cure I'd find a way to get there.

Each of them will come face
to face with the scientists
who claim to have an answer.

Are you Dean? Hi, I am Dean.

I am Doris. In that little bump,

everything you need to know. Yeah.

So we generate your leg in that bump.

I promise you that, I know that.

They need to find out if some of the
promises are too good to be true.

Oh, wow, I'd say he's walking.

Or could this really be the
beginning of a new age
of miracle cures?

There's a part of me that
really thinks I will walk again.

I'd just finished school and
I was really excited about the
future, and going off to uni and

meeting new friends and you know
being able to go out clubbing all
the time and not be at school.



It was just about the next
phase of life.

When I was 15,
16, that's when I really
started getting into rugby.

All my friends played
and they stuck me out on the wing,

because I was not the
best catcher or kicker,

but I could run quite quickly.

I've always been quite active.

I refereed, was a football referee.
Enjoyed that running around on a

Saturday and Sunday,
taking the boys to football

and playing with them
and doing you know the, what a
father would do with their kids.

I never thought at all that
I would be struck down with

anything that was going to affect
my life in the way that it did.

If someone had said, "In about two
weeks time,

"you're going to have a car accident
to change your life," I would just...

God, you know, no way!

God no. You have no idea so yeah,
yeah, very clueless.

All I can remember is
Pete hitting my shinbone
so his full weight went straight

through my right shinbone and
basically put what looked like a
new joint in the middle of my leg.

I remember driving really fast.

I remember the music
playing and I remember talking to
the guy on my left, and then I

turned back round and the corner was
right there so I just spun the wheel
too fast and lost control and...

and that was it, yeah.

So that's the last memory.
I don't really remember much else.

Dean was 33 when a rare condition
began killing off the muscles
of his heart.

I had a heart rate of 220
and I'd gone purple and the
veins in my neck here had become

engorged with blood because my
heart wasn't able to, I know now,
to pump the blood round my body.

The day before Anthony turned 18
he broke his leg in a rugby match.

It seemed like a
simple injury to fix.

I remember being
really shocked the first time I saw
it, after it had been amputated.

I think my,
my shock was quite physical.

My physio came down with me
and I think she got a bit upset
at my reaction to it as well.

Sophie Morgan's spinal cord was
damaged in the accident,

leaving her
paralysed from the waist down.

The first time I got
into a wheelchair,
it was literally like being reborn.

It's so hard to describe but
because I couldn't feel my body,

I didn't know where my body was, so
I was just like floating almost.

It was bizarre. From then on I
thought this is going to be weird.

All three live with conditions
which for now cannot be cured,

but there is one emerging area of
science that connects all three,

one that is promising
to heal them all.

Scientists believe that the
potential to repair ourselves lies
at the very earliest stage of life,

in a single incredible
controversial cell -

an embryonic stem cell.

These are the very first cells that
initiate life itself,

created as the fertilised egg
divides in the first few days.

When you look down the microscope
at embryonic stem cells, you know you
can't help but just marvel at them.

What's really amazing about
embryonic stem cells in particular

is the fact that, that these cells

can generate we think every
single cell type in the body.

They are the fundamental building
blocks of life because they are what

at the very earliest stages will
give rise to everything in the body
and ultimately to you and I.

In the womb, these cells
retain their ability to become any
part of the body for just six days.

But medical science wants to
understand and control this brief
and unique ability.

We can induce these cells to divide
and divide.

We can literally generate trillions
and trillions and trillions of cells,
and even after that huge expansion,

these cells should still be
capable of differentiating into
every cell type in the body.

We can then begin to create cells
that can repair tissues in a way
that the body itself can't do.

We've never had
anything like this before,

and I think cells like this will
completely revolutionise medicine.

The use of embryonic stem
cells is controversial,
but it's the promise of reversing

a host of incurable conditions
that's made them the holy grail
of 21st century medicine...

..generating a new sense of hope
for people like Sophie,
Dean, and Anthony.

If I could grow a leg back,
I'd love to do something really...

I don't care what it is, just do
something very simple, I'd just
love to go to a beach,

kick the shoes off, take the
dog for a really long walk
down the beach.

That, that would be the one thing
that I would love to do.

But will the promise of
stem cells really deliver?

Will the revolution come in time?

I'd like them to discover the
way to cure my heart condition

so I can get back to
how it was beforehand.

Just to do the
simple things in life

with the children and just be there
and be their dad.

The dreams of so many people are
resting on the curative power
of this extraordinary single cell.

There's a million things
I'd like to do again,

but definitely up there would be to
be able to dance again.

Yeah that would be pretty good.
I think I'd dance until
I could not dance any more.

But there's a problem

because the very thing that makes
embryonic stem cells so exciting

also makes them incredibly
difficult to control.

If I put 50,000 undifferentiated
human embryonic stem cells

into a mouse, I would
get a tumour.

This ball of teeth, hair and muscle

is the consequence of losing control
of embryonic stem cells.

You know you're always constantly
fighting this battle between

the cells wanting to turn into
organs and tissues, and you trying to
block that.

That's the real problem with
these cells - learning how
to control that process.

How do you take a cell that wants to
turn into every cell type, and turn
it into only one specific cell type?

It's a massively complex puzzle
that scientists around the world
have faced.

And the progress of work has
been really painstakingly slow
over the last five or six years

simply because we had to learn how to
work with these cells that
we'd never had before.

The complexity is still expanding.
We haven't reached the end of it yet.

While scientists
grapple with the problems,

it's an agonising wait for people
whose lives could be transformed.

As with everything else in life,
it would seem that a more immediate
answer lies only a click away.

"Human foetal stem cells,
treatment available today.

"The future is already here."

You see all the different
things that it can help -

Alzheimer's, cardiovascular
diseases, cerebral palsy, diabetes,

failed back surgery syndrome,
spinal cord injuries and strokes.

So many people that it can help.

It's amazing isn't it?

And they're all really positive.

Around the world
some private clinics claim they can
cure you with stem cells today.

Practising in countries with fewer
regulations, these doctors appear
to have all the answers right now.

And Sophie's attention has been
caught by one particular doctor.

'We are dealing with patients
of incurable and terminal conditions.

'Therapy here is the
first of its kind in the world.

'Patients start walking which they
have not done for the
last five years.'

Geeta Shroff's Indian clinic
claims to have already treated

500 patients successfully
and the testimonies look impressive.

"My story, at the age
of twenty-four I sustained a complete
spinal cord injury and now..."

Look, there's actual videos of her
walking. Look this is a video of her.

Oh, my word! Yeah walking down.
That was in India.

She's like laughing uncontrollably,
but... I know, it's amazing isn't
it?

Amazing, and this is with...

Geeta Shroff? Geeta Shroff, yeah.

Although
it can cost up to £20,000

for treatment in India,
the online images make it tempting.

I think it's really brave of people
to take that risk and spend the money
and go out to these places,

and really hope and try. And the
ones that have had success -
it's just fantastic.

Because every part of me thinks
you know you don't have to
do what you're told to do.

If someone says the treatment's
out there, then go and get it.
Do you know what I mean?

Just because your doctor says it's
not - doctors aren't always right.

In often cases they're
pretty much wrong.

The flat's so different from up here.
Yeah.

Sophie's heading off to find out if

there really has been a breakthrough
that could get her back on her feet.

Further forward, and then...

Like thousands of other
people desperate for a cure,

Sophie's not sure whether to risk
going for treatment right now...

..or wait
for mainstream medicine to catch up.

It's so unnatural to be you know in
a chair and not be able to walk

and it's so,
it goes against everything

that makes sense really in your mind,

so I don't think that coming to terms
with it has actually been an option.

I really really really want to
walk again. I mean that's,
that's something

that I really want to happen.

You know I'm
very used to being an amputee.

It's actually one of the
things I'm very proud of.

This is the prosthetic running leg.

Done a couple of half
marathons on this and this is a

fantastic bit of kit really.

Very very rarely
I'll leave home without it.

Whenever I go through airport
security, I've probably got
a similar amount of metal

attached to my knee as you find
in an AK-47 which is normally all
right until you go to America

and then everyone looks at
you and reaches for their hip!

Although Anthony has adapted to life
without his leg, when he broke it,
it was hard to be as stoical.

Normally you break a leg and your
body sorts itself out.

In my case though there's a
bit of a catalogue of errors.

A botched pinning procedure
led to eighteen operations

and an MRSA infection which caused
the disintegration of his shinbone.

I was in pain all the time.

MRSA, it is a particularly nasty
infection in terms of what it
does to you

and every time you thought
it couldn't get any worse, it would
suddenly get much, much worse.

It was a bit like a horror
film in that sense.

The infected bone was lost for good
and eventually amputation
was the only option.

Now he's on his way to Finland
to witness a remarkable procedure

that could make horrific experiences
like this a thing of the past.

I think it will be exciting
to see this real stuff of
science fiction put into practice.

But the stem cells that
Anthony's about to see
don't come from embryos.

Scientists have discovered another
source in all of us -

adult stem cells.

There are a number of different stem
cell populations that are being
described coming from adult tissues

that we didn't know about it
maybe five years ago.

So, like everything in this field,
it's just an ever-expanding body
of knowledge

that changes very rapidly.

Adult stem cells are already
more specialised which makes

them less adaptable, but that
also makes them easier to transform
into certain types of cell.

Embryonic stem cells, we view as
being the most versatile cells
because they can make everything

including all of these
adult stem cell populations.

But adult stem cell
populations in their own right

have tremendous clinical utility,
but for very specific
clinical conditions.

Because adult stem cells are easier
to control, scientists are already
using them in trials with patients.

Anthony has come to Tampere
University, the first place

in the world claiming to have
turned adult stem cells into bone.

Hello Professor Ohman. How are you?

Very well thanks, yourself?
Fine thank you. Good stuff.

He's come to their operating
theatre to see the cells in action.

He's been in theatre many times,
but this will be the first
time he's been awake.

Should be OK in the operation,
I think. Someone catch me if I fall!

Socks and leather shoes are the
bane of my life,

but I think it should be OK.

There you go, that should be stuck
on there.

Surgeon Juha Ohman is attempting one
of the first operations
of its kind -

rebuilding a skull using stem
cells.

The patient, Marku,
lost a large section of bone

in his forehead through infection
just like the bone in Anthony's leg.

This is the CT scan of the patient's
skull and as you can see here,

this is the area that is missing
bone.

It's quite stark isn't it when
you see it like this? Yeah.

Two weeks ago Marku had liposuction.

Fat is a great source
of adult stem cells.

The 50,000 cells were then grown
into 15 million in the lab.

Then a carefully balanced
cocktail of growth factors was added

triggering the stem cells
to turn into bone, and nothing else.

Half an hour into the operation and
the stem cells arrive from the lab.

Juha has exposed the area
that is missing skull bone.

Stem cells. Right.

It's quite hard and it's like,
like a little bit sticky. I see.

How long will it be before
the sort of porridge becomes
solid, solid bone?

I think within, within three months

it will be soft bone and in six
months it will be bone.

The team has also grown
missing sections of jawbones

and soon hopes to tailor-make
whole bones for transplant.

You see? Satisfied?

I think it looks all right.
Good, OK.

So just
finished with Marku's operation.

Obviously with me having
that infection in my shinbone,
I mean the same principle applies.

If someone's had the same problem in
five years time, you could have
a sandwich of stem cells

between layers of scaffolding
and then the whole shinbone's back
and working again in six months.

It's very, very exciting.

Although this stem cell
treatment is too late for Anthony,

he's about to find out what research
has been done that could help him.

Sophie's arrived in California.

She's been following online
testimonies of people

claiming to healed and now she's
about to meet one of
them face to face.

Chris Oberle who's been to see
Geeta Shroff.

Oh, wow!

So he's walking.

Chris paid 30,000 dollars for
treatment with embryonic stem cells

at the Indian clinic, with
what looks like incredible results.

I'm looking forward to meeting
him to ask him how much
the treatment has made a difference.

If it turns out that
what has happened to him is something
that could happen to me,

then I'd definitely look into it.
I mean I'd be there in a
heartbeat if I believed in it.

Chris asked her to meet
him at a local surfers' beach.

Hi! Hello.

Is this your dog?

That's Bruno.
Hello Bruno! Hi, Chris. How are you?

Nice to meet you, how you doing?
Good, good. You should go out.

I'm an underwater not on top of the
water kind of person. No, no.

But the reality about any dramatic
change in Chris
is beginning to dawn.

I was looking at your website
last night and there was a video
of you walking in callipers.

When I saw it I was quite,
"Wow that's amazing."

That was a huge plus and that was
something that was, I'm really
glad about.

I mean that I went, that I had that
experience there so...

A lot of the things that
I was seeing in India,

that they were claiming as results,
I've seen people make those advances
just through physical therapy.

Just through a lot of... Really?

It wasn't like you were cured
and you could stand up and walk?

No. It's just the callipers. Right.
OK.

So...what did she do?

OK. They insert a catheter into your
spinal column

and they insert the
stem cells directly into your cord.

She just said, "Look
it knows where it's needed.

"It'll home into that
spot and it'll work there."

So did you feel an immediate
difference after the treatment
or did it take a while?

I never felt the difference. Really?
Yeah. Really?

So, yeah I never felt
the difference.
So what...even afterwards, nothing?

Nothing. Really? So...

And I mean a lot of people do.

I just didn't so... And it makes
me feel like maybe I didn't do
something right while I was there.

Maybe I should have been
doing something differently,

but I don't know what I could
have done differently. I think no.

I think after
looking at Chris's website

before I met him, I definitely felt
encouraged I suppose,

so it kind of was a disappointment,
but then it's definitely not made me
think,

"There's no cure out there and what
they're doing is not right."

I mean I know
Chris didn't have any results,

but I'm sure there are
people out there that have.

Sophie still doesn't know if she
should go abroad for treatment

and with few hard facts available,
she's just as confused.

It's hard to know what's
truth and what's fabrication.
It's so hard to know.

You're very much on your own if you
want to go and explore those avenues.

So she's off to meet a man
who has more of an overview.

Neurologist Bruce Dobkin
at the University of California
is the only doctor who's examined

spinal cord injury patients before
and after going abroad for stem
cell treatment,

this time in China.

So with these patients, did you see
an improvement?

We didn't detect any improvement.

There were
some interesting things.

Two of them said they got
substantially better.

One mother reported the
quality of life of her son was
so much better, and do you know why?

Couldn't walk better,
he couldn't use his bladder better.

He didn't have any less pain.

He decided to go back to school
and he had a girlfriend.

And he finally decided to get on
with his life, but the surgeon read

the e-mail in China and said, "See,
the quality of his life is better
because I gave him cells."

The statements that
are made by people
who are financially benefiting

from drawing and attracting
more people to pay more money

aren't necessarily the kind of
things you'd want to believe.

I think that people who have raised
money from friends and family...

They had spent 50,000 dollars
and I think when you spend that
much money it's very easy to be...

To feel that what I did
helped a little bit.

I hear this a lot. I hear a lot of
people saying that a
lot of patients -

it's almost like a placebo effect.

But you cannot
wish a spinal cord injury better.

People will go out to these clinics
and they've had improved bladder
control or they've had a massive

difference in things that you
cannot use physiotherapy for.

And so how can you dispute that
maybe there is,

maybe they can, maybe it can be done?

Maybe these things, the stem cell
injections can actually in these,
these places help people?

When I talk to the people that
sell cells, and then I say,
"If your cells work so well,

"why in the world can't
we set up a small clinical trial?"

They all say, "Well we're
going to do that some day."

Here's someone who's out there
and saying, "My cells are so smart,

"they're going to
know just where to go.

"They're going to reintegrate
your nervous system in that area
and fix your problem."

It's beyond science fiction.

If this works so well,
why would you be afraid

to do a simple trial with
fifty of your subjects who would be
more than happy to participate?

In the absence of that
it's completely unethical

for physicians to be selling
a treatment. That's snake oil.

It's just that, it's terrible.

It's exploitation.

They're just playing on the hopes of
these desperate people.

So awful.

Good luck. Thank you, bye!

Keep on doing well in your life.

I will.

It's been enough to make Sophie
reassess if an unregulated clinic
could help her walk again.

While I've always tried to have an
open mind when it comes to making my
mind up about where I get treated

and I don't have to definitely follow
the instructions of my GP

or the rules that are dictated over
in England and Europe,

I have to say that I kind of
feel like they're there for
a reason and those rules

are there for your protection really.

And that's why I think I should
listen

and not go to pursue my own
little journey somewhere else
over in India or China.

I should just wait until
it is safe and it has been tested.

It's made Sophie understand
the need for regulated trials.

She's lost hope
in an immediate cure.

It was just too...

It was just too much luck.

I don't know, it was just too
good to be true.

She's now going to find out
just how close mainstream science is
to getting her back on her feet.

The promise of stem
cells is tantalising, but uncertain,
for the people who could be healed.

But the scientists
are confident that this revolution
in medicine will happen.

Up until very recently our whole
way of treating disease has been to
treat the symptoms of a disease.

What regenerative medicine
using stem cells addresses
is actually getting at the

underlying causes of the disease
and not just treating the symptoms,
but actually undoing the damage.

For Sophie and Anthony, stem
cells could improve their lives.

But for Dean, a breakthrough
could save him from an early death.

The condition is going to cause my
demise at some point.

That does get you in the head and
you wake up and you think,
"I'm here, good."

Come on Bill, you got to land one!

Five years ago family man Dean
was diagnosed with a rare heart
condition -

dilated cardiomyopathy,

which could cause
death at any moment.

Leaving the children behind, not
seeing them grow up, you know,

it's really quite difficult
to think about it now
because it's quite emotional.

Although drugs have
stabilised Dean's condition,

the gradual death of muscle cells
have permanently weakened his heart.

But Dean's condition may also
leave his children with a terrifying
legacy.

For each of his kids,
there's a 50% chance
that Dean's passed it onto them.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't
do anything differently
in my life with you lot.

I would still have you, because I
love you all to bits

and you're important to me, but as a
parent the most difficult thing

that you could possibly do
is pass something down.

It's something
that only God knows why because
we've got no control over it,

but if I've passed something...
You can't help it.

I can't, but if I've passed
something down

and I haven't taken the steps to
protect you, it would be so bad.

Dean's going to find out
if stem cells can save him
and maybe his children.

For now,
a heart transplant offers the only

permanent solution, but he is on his
way to witness a pioneering trial

that may lead to the cure he needs.

You know beforehand I've
just been relying on the
drugs that I've been given

but that just stabilises my
condition.

If this can help repair it
then this is a fantastic day,

not just for me, but for
a lot of other people as well.

Dean's come to the London Chest
Hospital to meet cardiologist
Dr Anthony Mathur

who's conducting one of the first
ever trials

to see if adult stem cells
can improve damaged hearts.

Hi, Dean! Hi, Dr Mathur! Welcome to
the London Chest. Thank you.

So you've come to see what we're
up to with our stem cell trials?

Yeah. What
are you doing today then?

We're trying to ask the question
whether using your own stem cells,

not embryonic or anything like
that, but your own stem cells,
purifying them and putting them

back into the heart can actually lead
to an improvement in heart function.

OK. So is this something that could
help me in the future?

Yeah. At the moment we're
testing it in people who have been

told they have no other option
and so what we've done is
we've set up a trial

in which we randomise the patients to
receive either cells
or a placebo injection.

I know some people find that a
bit of a strange concept, that
we're giving a placebo,

but really in medical trials it's the
only way you can actually work out

whether your therapy
has made a difference.

Six months ago Brian
had stem cells removed from his
bone marrow for his procedure.

He then had a series of
injections into his damaged heart.

As the patient's own stem cells
are used, there's no issue
of the body rejecting them.

You all right there, Brian?
OK. We're about to start.

Obviously you might feel your
heart jumping around a bit.

Today Dr Mathur is creating a
detailed map of Brian's
heart function

with a special electrode to
see if there's been any improvement.

Really interesting.

Yeah.
It's fantastic to see it in 3D.

Yeah the picture slowly
building as he's...

Virtually finished.

Just a little bit more,

so if you just want to tidy it up,
I want to take the catheter out

and then we'll get Dean in to
show him the map, yeah?

Red is bad. Red is part of the
heart that's been badly damaged.

Blue and purple is good,
and green is that part of the heart
that sort of can't make its mind up.

It's not alive enough but
equally it hasn't been lost.

That's the bit you're looking to
work on. That's the bit, yeah.

And what happens in the green
zone is that although the heart
is alive, it doesn't work.

OK.

The hope is that the stem cells
will regenerate dormant heart cells

in this green border zone,
and improve heart function.

But the rigorous rules
of a double blind trial
mean that Dr Mathur isn't

allowed to see his results until
the last patient has been treated.

Will you have any idea from the
patients that you've already seen

if they've had the placebo or
if they've had the..?

Have you got any hunches at all?

I've got absolutely no idea at all.

I think what's really fascinating is
that in the group of people who are
predicted to continue to deteriorate

because they have such
bad heart disease,
we do see people who get better.

This trial may be just a first step,
but if stem cells can reverse heart

damage, the implications for people
like Dean and possibly his children
are enormous.

What they're doing is going to
change the future
for a lot of people

and you can only be optimistic.
You know it might not.
I'm a realist, it might not happen

in my lifetime, but to think that
they're doing that and it would be
for my children's lifetime

and my grandchildren's lifetime,
is absolutely fantastic.

But with the trial results
only available next year,

Dean needs to see if there are
more immediate ways of helping
his precariously damaged heart.

What makes stem cells so special is
not just their
potential to cure us from disease.

Scientists also
think they could give us

the ability
to regrow whole body parts.

In America, research is already
underway attempting to help people
like Anthony grow back a limb.

Anthony is about to meet a scientist
who claims to have

evidence that amputations
could one day be reversible.

Welcome, nice to meet you finally.

It is indeed, Anthony.

Biologist David Gardiner at
the University of California

has dedicated his career
to an intriguing little creature

with a very unusual ability,
one that suggests we may

all have the potential to heal
ourselves when seriously injured.

If it weren't for these animals,
and you said, "I think we can regrow
an arm or a leg,"

people would say you
are crazy, right?

Because, because then you'd
have to have just made it up.

I have this idea
that maybe this is possible to do,

but we don't have to do that
because we have these.

These are axolotls, they're
salamanders and, and they can do it.

Salamanders have regenerating
abilities that far exceed those

of other vertebrates, but this
particular breed of salamander,

called an axolotl and found in
only certain lakes in Mexico,
trumps them all.

So this is you. I mean basically I
mean it has its arms amputated, but
you can do the same thing on the leg.

And... I'll show it to you if I can
get this guy without...

Slippery. Yeah they are. Ah! I can
do this.

This is an animal that you know was
amputated yesterday.

Oh, right. Does that look familiar?
That does look familiar.

You wake up every
morning and you see that. Yeah.

Already in twenty-four hours, those
cells are beginning to go down
this regeneration pathway and...

But what
you see there is just a stump.

And this is, this is only about
ten days later. Right.

It's a lot of difference isn't it?

This is, you know, starting to grow
out and it's actually starting to
flatten a little bit

because it's going to make the hand
and our hands are flat and thin.

And they always grow back
exactly what you cut off.

And they don't grow back more,
and they don't grow back less.

Just how the salamander

is able to regrow amputated limbs is
something that has huge implications
for people like Anthony.

The answer seems to lie in
what happens just after injury.

So say for a salamander,
does any sort of protective covering
form over a stump whatsoever?

Are they
prone to infection or complications?

Yeah well...they don't make scars.

When your leg's amputated, it closes
over, makes a scar and that's it.

And this animal closes it
over and the same cells,

they're not magic cells, those same
cells that made the scar here like,
here they form the blastema.

These are the cells that they migrate
and they begin to proliferate and
they become like stem cells.

It's very, very much like stem cells.

They have the ability to remake
the basic pattern of the limb.

All the evidence is that that's the
same as what happened when
you were an embryo.

This bump here and the limb bud
in an embryo are the same structures
and that's really important.

Remarkably
salamanders have somehow retained

their embryonic ability to marshal
the body's stem cells and regenerate
even when seriously injured,

an ability we have in the womb for
the first few months of life
but then lose.

Scientists believe that if
we could retain that ability,

we too could have limitless
capacity for regeneration.

Can you picture a time when
humans would be able to you know
grow back a whole, a whole limb?

In that little bump,
everything you need to know

to regenerate your leg
is in that bump you know?

I promise you that, I know that.

Amazing thinking that
here we've got our model
for regrowing a limb

and it's in this six inch long sort
of pink amphibian that can just do
it at will.

Scientists
are already attempting to replicate
how salamanders regrow limbs.

Anthony is on his way to the
American army's medical research
facility in Fort Sam, Texas.

This is where soldiers end up after
losing limbs on the battlefield.

Anthony has special access to
the radical research which is

attempting to unlock our
dormant ability to regenerate.

It's just mind-blowing when you
think of what a leg is made of.

I really just can't begin to get
my head around where they start.

Where do you begin with all of this?

Anthony is meeting the surgeon
that the US military's research
arm is putting their money behind.

Dr Steve Wolf is putting his faith
in a special substance they've named

pixie dust which doesn't contain
any actual stem cells.

Right, so this is the stuff.

So what we do is we
take an open wound, so we cut open

something and so you've got a wound
surface like this and you take this
powder and just pack it on there.

Then what happens we think is that
it gets populated by stem cells.

The pixie dust is derived from
high protein pigs' bladders.

When it's placed in a wound,
the pixie dust releases chemical

signals that act as a homing signal
for all the stem cells in the body

to regenerate rather than scar.

The stem cells are circulating around
in all of us all the time,

and the cells come in and they say,
"I'm not in scar, I'm in something
else - I'm supposed to regenerate."

Right. But that's the general idea,
is that this provides an environment
that's not scarred to begin with.

The US military is so excited
with the promise the powder holds

that it's begun human trials,
starting with fingers.

If this works, it could be a step
towards Anthony regrowing his leg.

He's meeting Sergeant Shilo Harris,
the first man they started treating.

There he is, right there.

How you doing?
Hello, good morning to you.
Had to bring the whole crew today.

If it could have been just me,
we might have been here
sooner.

What's your name? Albert.

Albert, that's cool. And Nicholas.

And Nicolas. And what's your name?

Elizabeth.

Hello Elizabeth. I'm Anthony
by the way, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Do you mind telling me what happened
to sort of get injured?

I'll tell you loosely what
happened since my kids are here.

It was kind of an ambush scenario.

Two dismounts...

and my driver and I were
the only two that survived

and anyway fortunately
both of us were sent here.

I'm not going to sugar-coat it.

There was days that I was
ready to give up,

there was days that I didn't want to
get out of bed,

but these three children and my
wife,

they helped me push through and
here I am. And here I am a
guinea pig, I guess I'm...

So as you can see,
Shilo's missing things

and what we did was this was back
about right here before,

and that's, we think about a half
inch, give or take, longer
than it was before.

When we first started it
was pretty much flat across.

You couldn't see a hump.

Dr Wolf opened the wound
and applied doses of powder which he

hoped would attract Shilo's own stem
cells to start regrowing the finger.

We can see like a peak of tissue
just growing like a little...

I don't know, it was really weird.

And it wasn't granulation tissue,
it had a different appearance.

It was a growth and you know it was
really awesome so that really got us
fired up about that.

You can feel it, it's kind of hard.

Oh, yeah. So you know I think it's
like the, the bone you know getting

solid in there. It's trying to form.

It's the first shot at
this and I think in the...

If this works 10, 20 years from
now it will be much easier to do.

This small amount of growth
is just the result of Shilo's first

treatment with the powder,
but he'll be back for more.

It's left Anthony wondering
what it could mean for him.

It was very nice to meet you.
Nice meeting you too.

What they're doing with this dust
in terms of just, just the very

start of the research, growing back
bits of finger maybe a centimetre or
so of bone,

a little bit of muscle
going on in there as well - in its
infancy the research is incredible.

But in terms of growing legs back,
although it does seem like a
possibility, the real question is

the time line and it's going to be a
slow process but one that eventually
they seem confident it'll get to.

Dean's come to the University of
Minnesota in the States
to visit Dr Doris Taylor

whose team is working on something
from the realms of science fiction -

attempting
to grow new hearts in the lab.

Are you Dean? Hi, I'm Dean.
I'm Doris. How you doing?

Come on in. Thank you.

This is my lab.

What we've tried to
do is realise that for people
with end stage heart failure,

really the only
true treatment is a transplant.

That's right yeah,
that's what I've been told.

So there are
not enough hearts to go round. No.

Our goal is to try to build a heart
in the lab. It's absolutely amazing.

What we believe is you need cells and
you need a scaffold on which you can

put those cells because cells in a
dish alone don't make a heart, right?

We said nature's already
built the perfect scaffold.

We don't know how to, we don't
have to learn how to do it. So...

But look at this.
This is a rat's heart

but, this is why, because literally
we're removing all the cells

and all that's left is what we call
the extra-cellular matrix,

the protein underneath that the cells
sit on.

Now we can take that scaffold
and transplant cells back on.
Excellent.

So that's the "before".
Let me show you the "after".

Now this is only a few days
old so it's not perfect yet,

but you can see this heart and it's
not quite like the other one,

and you can
see it's actually moving. It's...

is it actually beating? Yeah.

It's fantastic.

Isn't that cool? That is cool.
That is absolutely amazing.

I'm in awe, Doris, I am
because that is absolutely amazing.

The inert heart scaffold has been
brought back to life

with adult stem cells
harvested from another rat.

This is nature's tool

and there seem to be cues in there
from nature that tell the cells
where to go and what to do.

I don't know, have you
ever held a heart before?

The next step for Doris
towards making hearts for people

is to scale the technique up
using a heart from a pig.

So you can put your hand under it

and there you go.

That's the scaffold
we would use to build you a heart.

So that's with all the
cells removed? Right.

And that's
ready to take the new cells?

Right. The hope is that

someone comes to us, they need
a heart, we find a pig scaffold.

We remove all the cells,
we get stem cells from them.

We put the cells back in, we grow the
heart, we mature it, we clean it up
and it's ready for transplant.

That's the hope, and because it
matches their body as their cells,

they don't need to take
harsh immuno or anti-rejection drugs.

Yeah. It's amazing.

I can't explain to you how
it feels to be standing here looking
at this, that this you know could

be the future, that it could cure me
and get me back to the life
that I had ten years ago.

I mean it's, it's...

you're the reason we're
doing what we're doing.

It's pretty amazing
to get to talk with you and it's...

It's pretty amazing
to get to talk to you.

It's humbling for me to know that
you're, doing this for people
like me.

And if anything you're
researching stem cells,

but what you're actually doing is
you're creating hope.

Oh, wow! You're creating hope
for hundreds of thousands of people.

Thank you. Do you do hugs?
Yeah I do hugs.

For Anthony and
Dean, the potential of stem cell
treatment is still some way off.

However for Sophie,
there may be a more immediate hope,

but one that depends on more
than medical science alone.

Because embryonic stem cells
require scientists to source

them from human embryos, they
have triggered huge controversy.

Research in America was
severely restricted for years.

Embryonic stem cell research
requires the destruction of life.

The ethical landscape around
embryonic stem cells in particular

has always been contentious.

It's been at times a very hard
battle to convince people that

this is appropriate
research that should be done.

You really have to work hard to
sell the benefits, potential
benefits of this research.

The controversy held back research,

but now the whole field
could be about to change.

I am a strong supporter
of stem cell research.

With attitudes changing,
a Californian biotech company
called Geron is on the brink of

being given the green light by the
US authorities to begin the world's

first human trial using embryonic
stem cells,

and it's for people with
spinal cord injury, like Sophie.

It's taken Geron a very, very
large amount of money,
a huge amount of animal data,

something like 22,000 pages of
documentation
to convince the FDA that this trial

should go ahead and I think this
really represents kind of a watershed
moment in stem cell biology.

Geron's pioneering trial
could make or break the whole field
of embryonic stem cell treatment.

If successful, it could lead to a
flood of cures for other diseases,
from blindness to diabetes.

For me it means that there could be
treatment.

I'm not expecting to come
away and sort of think,

"Oh, that's the man that's going to
cure me,"

but it's at the same time
very exciting. You can't get help
but get your hopes up.

Sophie is meeting Professor
Hans Keirstead from the

University of California,
the scientist behind it all.

Hi, hi how you doing?

Good to meet you. Welcome to the
centre. Thank you very much.
It's really smart. Yeah.

Yeah it's not bad.
Exciting stuff going on?

Lots of stuff going on.
I've been hearing about it.

This is the Reeve Irvine Research
Center. I didn't realise it was
to do with Christopher Reeve.

Yeah. there's a picture of him
here. Do you want to see the
laboratories?

Yeah definitely. Let's do it.

This is the first lab in the world
to announce they've found a way

to safely treat
humans with embryonic stem cells.

They claim to have mastered a
technique to turn them permanently

into spinal cord cells before
transplanting them into the body.

So what have you got
to show me on the computer?

This is a summary of the work that
we did that led to this clinical
trial,

so what you see here is a rat

that has an impaired ability
to walk,

so its belly is down,
its tail's down and it's...

Dragging itself almost. Yeah, it's
dragging itself.

If you imagine that these
are your brain signals
moving down your spinal cord

conducting electricity, they do
so because they're insulated,
like a wire in a wall is insulated.

I discovered, with a number of
other researchers around the world,

that that insulation
is lost after injury.

That's a therapeutic target,
so that's why we took
stem cells, made them into

the cell type that makes the
insulation.

When we put them in, they restored
the electrical conductivity
after wrapping the wires or axons

of the central nervous system and
the effects on the animal
was awesome.

I still remember the,
the first days when my animal team

would come upstairs and say we
broke the code. That was amazing.

That must have been amazing. Yeah
it was amazing. It really worked.

God, so now what the
human trial is doing is taking...

Explain to me what's going on.

Well, there are several centres
in the United States that are

preparing to recruit patients,
and the first patients are going

to get transplanted with these cells
within months, so it's imminent,
just happening now.

And you have high hopes obviously?
I've got very high hopes.

I realistically think that we're
going to get an incremental advance.

It's not going to take people
out of chairs playing soccer
overnight. It's not.

There's no way it can do that,
but I think what it will do is
restore some sensory... Some motor.

I mean could you imagine me
being able to walk again? I mean is
that something that you could..?

I wouldn't be here if I didn't.

It's such a big thing
for you to say.

Yeah, it is a big thing to say.

I have every bit of confidence that
spinal cord injury will be treatable
at any stage of its course.

A year, a decade, two decades after.

The face of spinal cord
injury is now for ever changed.

That's amazing. Yeah.

There's more people. It's going to
be different.

It's only twelve years since human
embryonic stem cells were first
successfully grown in the lab

and now it seems that medical
science

could finally be on the brink
of a complete transformation.

So I mean we're talking about a
fundamental revolution in medicine.

In the next 10 to 20 years
this field will just be massive.

It's just going to
fundamentally change the way

we treat patients, the way we look at
disease, the way we age and will
have major implications for society.

Seeing the beating heart in Doris's
lab has given Dean confidence that
one day his own heart will be fixed.

It's breath-taking, inspirational.
There's so many words

that you could pick out
of the English dictionary
to describe the lady and her team.

I'm really quite lost for many of
them which is much of a first
for me, but absolutely fantastic.

What a trip, what a journey.
She's brilliant.

For Anthony, the whole journey has
given him an insight into the size

of the task that scientists face
in attempting to regenerate limbs.

What they have found is that there's
going to be a long research journey.

You know, another sort of 10,
20 years down the line, this science
fiction does become science fact.

But confronted by the
prospect of regaining his leg,

he's been thinking more deeply about
what it means to be an amputee.

I don't feel there are many
difficult situations that can be
thrown my way now

that I don't think I could overcome,
and maybe if I had a leg back,

my concern is that I might
lose something that's
integral to me as a person.

So right now, I think it's...
I'm happy as I am. I'm happy with my
wooden leg.

But for Sophie, what she has
discovered about stem cell research

has made her change
the way she thinks about her future.

At the beginning I think I was
looking more for an immediate change
and a cure,

and I think now I know that that's a
very, very dangerous thing to do.

So I think I'm a lot happier,
a lot more settled.

I've made my decision and just sit
back and wait till the time is right

which I kind of have this feeling
is not going to be too long.

It will be something that's
going to happen for me in my
lifetime, I think. I hope anyway.