Patty Loew:
Research of another kind is carrying high hopes for cures against Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. Getting young people involved in science is one way Wisconsin can maintain its leading edge in stem cell research. While some kids are at basketball or band camp, "In Wisconsin" reporter Art Hackett found students from rural high schools peering into microscopes at a camp in Madison.

Art Hackett:
The arrival looks like any other summer camp. Suitcases, room keys, ID bracelets. What's different for 20 students from rural Wisconsin high schools and their teachers is what they will be working with the next three days.

Man:
Today we'll be encapsulating stem cells.

Art Hackett:
Stem cells, cells often but not always cultured from human embryos which can be coaxed into becoming like those in our heart, our pancreas or the nerves in our spinal cord.

Man:
That's your job today is to isolate the neural cells and purify these cultures of cells.

Art Hackett:
The camp is sponsored by WiCell, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's institute for stem cell research.

Rupa Shevde:
There was a small percentage of rural Wisconsin high school students who were comfortable coming to a big campus like UW Madison so we thought that this would be a great idea to bring them to campus to help them see what kind of science is being done. To help them alleviate their fear of the unknown and of the campus, and at the same time empower them and give them the confidence they need to think about a future career in science.

Woman:
Do you have a bubble somewhere on your slide? If you just sort of gently tap the stamp.

Allison Schmidt:
We did passaging of cells where we put them in new plates to grow.

Woman:
And you're ready to flip it upside down.

Art Hackett:
The students made structures to hold stem cells together, to form tissues.

Man:
Tissue engineering is scaffold mixed with cells. We're taking our agarous scaffold and adding cells.

Art Hackett:
Right now the tissues are things like the cartilage in your ear, the campers see an even greater promise in the future.

Ellyn Schmelz:
I hope that they're able to finally transplant organs. I think that's a major thing that should be done with them. It's just, it would help so many people.

Rupa Shevde:
We hope you'll say this is the best camp you've ever attended.

Art Hackett:
The camp began in 2007. That was the year after a national election in which stem cells were a hot button issue.

Michael J Fox:
What you do in Missouri affects millions of Americans, Americans like me.

Art Hackett:
Most stem cells come from human embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization procedures.

Michael J Fox:
They want to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope.

Art Hackett:
Then and now the camp begins with a presentation by a medical ethicist.

Linda Hegel:
Whether you're going to be working with patients or in basic discovery science, whether it's stem cells or nano technology, you will be coming across policy and ethical and political issues. They're just going to be there.

Michael J Fox:
I care deeply about stem cell research.

Caitlin Bowie:
I knew there was a great deal of potential in the technology but I had no idea where it was or how it was done.

Art Hackett:
Caitlin Bowie of New Glarus attended the first stem cell camp in 2007. She had paid attention to the ads with Michael J Fox.

Caitlin Bowie:
Michael J Fox has Parkinson’s disease and that's a disease that's pretty similar to my mom's disease which is MS and it was really interesting to see someone talk about how promising it could be. Especially for a disease that was so similar. It made me think, if it's promising for Parkinson’s, there's probably a lot of potential for it to help patients with MS.

Art Hackett:
Bowie wrote about her mother's multiple sclerosis in her essay seeking admission to the camp.

Caitlin Bowie:
Nine years ago my mother was diagnosed with MS and I've watched her cope with the results of her condition for more than half my life. If there was any way for my mom to walk again, to cure her illness, I would pursue it wholeheartedly. I was under the impression that it was a fix all. Just inject stem cells and it will grow a body part or repair a damaged liver. But it's more complicated than that.

Man:
That's the kind of thing we're looking at. Small changes in people's lives and I think you get involved with trying to cure ALS to play tennis again, but we’re dealing with small stuff.

Art Hackett:
Bowie is now a student at UW-Eau Claire with a double major in biology and art. She asked if she could come back to this year's camp and see what changed.

Caitlin Bowie:
There's a few different presentations that they've made. There are advances that are intriguing.

Man:
You should be seeing the neural parts fall right off.

Art Hackett:
Bowie spent time under a lab hood sorting stem cells which had been turn the into nerve cells.

Caitlin Bowie:
It seems like it's taking a long time but when you look at the leaps and bounds they're making in a matter of three years only, it's pretty impressive.

Art Hackett:
And she learned applications involving the nervous system are progressing faster than other areas of stem cell science.

Man:
The only approved stem cell transplant trial in America is the so-called Geron Trial. Has anybody heard about that? You already talked about that. For spinal cord injury. The idea is that in spinal cord injuries you lose myelin around the cells.

Art Hackett:
Myelin acts as an insulator between nerve cells and the other cells that surround them.

Caitlin Bowie:
In MS the myelin coating on the nerves is destroyed and it disrupts the connection between your brain and it telling your muscles in your body to do things. So if they could somehow repair the myelin, it would do so much good for MS and I think it would provide a lot of hope.

Art Hackett:
Perhaps hope for Caitlin's mother.