DragonI

Experimental stem cell therapy helps paralyzed man regain use of arms and hands

The 21-year-old who suffered a cervical spine injury in March gains significant improvement in his motor function at Keck Hospital of USC.

news.usc.edu

Keck Medical Center of USC today announced that a team of doctors became the first in California to inject an experimental treatment made from stem cells, AST-OPC1, into the damaged cervical spine of a recently paralyzed 21-year-old man as part of a multi-center clinical trial. 

Leading the surgical team and working in collaboration with Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center and Keck Medicine of USC, Charles Liu, MD, PhD, director of the USC Neurorestoration Center.

Two weeks after surgery, Kris began to show signs of improvement. Three months later, he’s able to feed himself, use his cell phone, write his name, operate a motorized wheelchair and hug his friends and family. Improved sensation and movement in both arms and hands also makes it easier for Kris to care for himself, and to envision a life lived more independently.

“As of 90 days post-treatment, Kris has gained significant improvement in his motor function, up to two spinal cord levels,” said Dr. Liu. “In Kris’ case, two spinal cord levels means the difference between using your hands to brush your teeth, operate a computer or do other things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, so having this level of functional independence cannot be overstated.”

The pioneering surgery is the latest example of how the emerging fields of neurorestoration and regenerative medicine may have the potential to improve the lives of thousands of patients who have suffered a severe spinal cord injury. 

“I couldn’t drink, couldn’t feed myself, couldn’t text or pretty much do anything, I was basically just existing. I wasn’t living my life, I was existing,” Kris said as he recounted the bleak days following his traumatic injury.

“Now I have grip strength and do things like open a bottle of soda and feed myself. Whereas before I was relying on my parents, now after the stem cell therapy I am able to live my life.”

Inside Evan Spiegel's very private Snapchat Story

It's Evan Spiegel's world — we're all just snapping in it

www.recode.net|Kurt Wagner

Before Evan Spiegel was Evan Spiegel, there were times he wanted to fit in.

Like in June 2012, when Spiegel walked across a makeshift stage erected inside Stanford University’s football stadium to collect a diploma he hadn’t actually earned.

Spiegel, then 22, was still a few credits short of graduating with his degree in product design. Stanford let him walk at its graduation ceremony with the assumption that he’d eventually finish his schoolwork.

His friends were all graduating, and his family was in town for the ceremony. Missing that moment would have been embarrassing.

Spiegel never ended up graduating. Now, he says, he wishes he hadn’t pretended that he did.

"It reminded me that oftentimes we do all sorts of silly things to avoid appearing different," Spiegel told USC’s business school graduates last May. "Conforming happens so naturally that we can forget how powerful it is. But the thing that makes us human are those times we listen to the whispers of our soul and allow ourselves to be pulled in another direction."

Evan Spiegel no longer conforms, and he doesn’t have to: He runs — and controls — Snapchat.

As he started to enter celebrity status in 2013, reporters mined those documents and surfaced with details that laid out a privileged life: As a teenager, Spiegel had a $250 weekly allowance. When his father wouldn’t buy him the new BMW he requested, he moved in with his mother out of protest. She leased him the $75,000 car. He’s not used to being told "no."

"We no longer have to capture the ‘real world’ and recreate it online," Spiegel explained during a speech he gave at a conference in early 2014. "We simply live and communicate at the same time."

Facebook tried and failed twice to replicate Snapchat’s disappearing photos product. (It also famously tried to buy Spiegel’s startup for $3 billion back in late 2012.) Both Twitter and Instagram replicated the Snapchat Stories format but to little effect.

But unlike Zuckerberg, Spiegel knows little code. He leaves his impact through vision and design. And that speaks again to what makes Spiegel different. Many of his ideas — most of which are raw and unorthodox — probably wouldn’t pass the smell test at larger companies like Facebook or Google.