Patty Loew:
Medical research is under the microscope this week as we take a closer look at a unique University of Wisconsin summer camp.  It gets high school kids from rural areas into high-tech labs.  In Wisconsin reporter Art Hackett introduces you to a senior who penned the winning essay and is on a personal quest for answers in New Richmond.  

Art Hackett:
In Cody Gensen's room there are not one, but two microscopes. He recently hooked them up to a video camera to a laptop computer. He uses them to look at plants and minerals.

Cody Gensen:
I was given it by my grandmother. She collects stones and gems.

Art Hackett:
And the occasional human specimen.

Cody Gensen:
I accidentally stabbed myself recently and I looked at my own blood.

Art Hackett:
Cody Gensen can't get enough hands-on science.

Cody Gensen:
There is not much science up here that is involved that you can just be a part of.

Art Hackett:
“Up here” is New Richmond.

Brad Melpert:
New Richmond, we're kind of a small town. It was a great opportunity to get students into those large research facilities and see what researchers are working on.

Art Hackett:
The opportunity Brad Melpert is talking about was the annual stem cell camp at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. When Cody's teacher talked about the camp, Gensen knew he wanted to go.

Cody Gensen:
I knew basic things I learned on the internet, their regeneration properties, how they can regenerate constantly, how they can only become certain tissues.

Art Hackett:
Melpert says some students were hesitant.

Brad Melpert:
Some of them didn't really know where the research had started from and how far it's gone. That opportunity to see where the opportunities are and how much benefit there is I think some of them came back really excited about the future of stem cell research.

Man:
Flush it out.
Cody Gensen:
There was one experiment where we were actually like in one of the controlled environments and we were transferring the stem cells. That I really enjoyed because it was just like, wow, you're working with actual equipment.   

Art Hackett:
Gensen, his teacher, and several other students we interviewed were all stunned by the same thing.   

Cody Gensen:
The most I remember is the beating heart cell. That is just really -- that was awesome.   

Art Hackett:
Stem cells can be differentiated into heart cells, cells which begin beating on their own. But in spite of the potential of stem cells to create tissue which springs to life, the research has been controversial because of where it began.

Linda Hogel:
The early years of embryonic stem cell research, everything was about the embryo. Now we are thinking more about getting to the clinic.

Art Hackett:
UW medical ethicist Linda Hogel told Gensen and the other campers about the origins of the first lines of stem cells. Human embryos left over from artificially-induced pregnancies.

Art Hackett:
Were you aware of the controversy over stem cells?

Cody Gensen:
I was very aware of the controversy. I don't think that it's right to kill a human life. But I just think that if they are donated cells and they aren't -- it's not killing a fetus. It isn't -- I just don't see it as that. I think that -- I don't know. I don't like it, but...

Art Hackett:
During stem cell camp lectures students learn there are new methods for producing the cells which don't rely on donated embryos.

Art Hackett:
It's sort of behind us.

Cody Gensen:
Not quite because they're still considered the gold standard. But I think eventually we'll find another, better route to derive stem cells.

Art Hackett:
In your essay you talk some about how this is really personal to you.

Cody Gensen:
I was just diagnosed recently with multiple sclerosis. And the current treatments are just not to the level that they are definite -- they're not definite, and I just -- I'm looking for something that was a better opportunity.

Man:
Put those in the right direction and we can put them back into the patient. We can use them to replace cells in the body.

Art Hackett:
Is there anything that you heard at the camp in particular that gave you hope?

Cody Gensen:
I heard something that no one ever had told me before.  

Man:
Remember, there are three main parts of cells.

Cody Gensen:
He talked about there being three different types of brain cells. One of them is re-myelinating. I was really impressed by that. Another was helper cells that just helps the neurons.

Art Hackett:
MS is the result of nerve cells losing a layer of myelin, which acts as an insulator.

Cody Gensen:
And so it would be possible to get a lot of those cells that could help and re-myelinate. MS could be curable.

Clive Svendsen:
That's the kind of thing we're looking at. It's small changes in people's lives. I think you get absorbed with, cure ALS. We're talking about small steps. If we can prove that we get a little bit to work and how long does the neuron last, maybe it will last another four, five years. Maybe it will fix it. Who knows? That's the glass half full.

Cody Gensen:
Stem cells, on the other hand, I think could do wonders. The hard thing is to get the stem cells into the person and have them actually affect the brain and the spinal cord.

Art Hackett:
Cody Gensen is interested in a career in medical research. Perhaps he'll have the chance to figure that out.   

Patty Loew:
Getting young people involved in science is one way Wisconsin can maintain its leading edge in stem cell research. If you'd like to find out more, just go to wpt.org and then click on "In Wisconsin" for our related report.