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Superman defined biotechnology as hope
Hope in Boston
The convention was run by BIO, the industry organization, in the age of genomics, and more than 20,000 people were there talking about cures, treatments, and the life-changing medicines and vaccines biotech could make. For John Crowley, a father of two children with a rare muscle disease, it was the first day in the industry, and he had gone to Boston rather than straight to the small startup being put together in Oklahoma.
Who needs hope
Reeve added that it is hope for people who need it today and also for people who don't know they will need it: the kid who breaks his neck in a football game or the young woman who breaks hers in a diving accident, whose lives change in an instant.
What stayed
Crowley has carried that ever since, including the idea that when biotech fails, which it usually does, the learnings can be seeds for someone else to pick up the research. He has since been named CEO of BIO, the organization that ran that convention.
Why doesn't the spinal cord heal itself?
Nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord regrow poorly compared with nerves in the arms and legs. After an injury, a scar forms at the site, and molecules in the surrounding tissue, such as the protein Nogo, signal growing fibers to stop. Adult neurons in the central nervous system also switch off much of the growth program they used in early development. Nerves outside the spinal cord can regenerate slowly over months.
How can failed drugs find new uses?
A compound that fails for one condition sometimes shows a useful side effect in trial participants. Minoxidil was developed as a blood pressure medicine and approved for that use in 1979, then noticed to cause hair growth. The US FDA approved a topical form for male pattern baldness in 1988.
Why did genomics raise hopes for cures?
The Human Genome Project promised to map every human gene, which could point to the causes of inherited diseases. A working draft was announced in June 2000, and the project was declared complete in April 2003. Finding the gene behind a disease became far faster, which let companies design therapies aimed at the cause. The National Human Genome Research Institute estimates the project cost about $2.7 billion in 1991 dollars.
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