Super Stemmys, a stem cell story

Stem cells to save the day! Or the heart, at least. That's the plot of a new children's book on adult (or repair) stem cells, published by the linkurl:Repair Stem Cell Institute;http://www.repairstemcells.org/ (RSCI) -- a Dallas- and Bangkok-based public affairs company that provides interested patients with contact information for stem cell treatment centers around the world.

"It's a nice idea," said cell biologist Mahendra Rao of linkurl:Life Technologies,;http://www.lifetechnologies.com/home.html a California-based biotechnology company. "I think it's good to tell kids about all current events, [including] technological breakthroughs," and "it's a nice book for kids [with] illustrations [that] are nice and a logical flow to it." The RSCI aims to connect patients seeking adult stem cell therapies with 10 medical centers (all of which are outside of the US), and the goal of the new book, Super Stemmys: Doris and the Super Cells, is to increase awareness that these treatments even exist in the first place. "I want people to know that these options are out there so they can consider these options in their treatment decisions," said book author linkurl:David Granovsky,;http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/ director of communications for RSCI. "The book is the quintessential element of distribution of that information in a digestible format, which is hopefully also fun and educational." Using rhyme and illustrations by Greg Boone (penname Boonie), the book tells the story of a bone marrow stem cell named Doris -- named after University of Minnesota researcher Doris Taylor, one of the first to treat cardiac disease with skeletal muscle and later stem cells -- who is called into action to fix a failing heart.

"I just felt it was a little too narrow," Rao added, noting that the book "was completely focused on bone marrow [stem cells] -- a very small subset of the whole stem cell field." Indeed, there is no mention of induced pluripotent stem cells or embryonic stem cells. "If I wanted to write a child's book on stem cells, I would have tried to give them a flavor for the whole wide range of stem cells," Rao said. "All stem cells are not the same." "It's just not a complete story," agreed cell biologist linkurl:Pamela Robey;http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/Research/NIDCRLaboratories/CranioSkeletal/PamelaGehronRobey.htm of the National Institutes of Health. Robey also noted that the book is also a bit unclear with regard to the science behind Doris's mission. "It was very nebulous about how that cell would fix the heart," she said. Super Stemmys "didn't really depict exactly where the field stands. There was kind of this underlying [notion] that any stem cell can do anything, and I don't think we believe that these days." The book depicts Doris and other stem cells being extracted from the bone marrow, put into culture, and then re-injected into a patient where they proceed to directly repair heart tissue. At some point between extraction and re-injection, Doris grows from an undersized "stemmy" to a gigantic "super stemmy" -- a transformation that "does not match what current technology does or presumes to do," Rao said. Such stem cells "don't repair structure [as the book implies] but may improve blood supply by providing signals to endogenous repair processes," he explained. But are these inaccuracies enough to misinform children's understanding of stem cell biology? Granovsky said that the depiction of Doris growing bigger was simply Boone's interpretation of the text -- an interpretation that likely comes from his background as a comic book illustrator, he added. Furthermore, with the science advancing at a rapid pace, Granovsky said he chose to breeze over some of the details of the mechanism to avoid "dating" the book. "I wanted it to be educational, but I didn't want to portray it as the end-all-be-all [of] how stem cells work."

"One should not expect to cover everything in the first book [on stem cells]," molecular biologist Xiangru Xu of linkurl:Yale University;http://www.yale.edu/ wrote in an email to The Scientist. The book is "really a scientific-based fairytale [that] reflects roughly the essential facts and expectations about stem cells [thus] far." Wanting to reach "as large an audience as possible," Granovsky wrote the book at a 6th grade level -- no easy task given "the inherent science and unknown science in it," he said. The problem is that the illustrations and rhyming parts of the book appear to be targeted towards a much younger audience, Robey said -- such as kindergartners or 1st graders. But at that age, they don't "even know what a cell is," she said. "The idea of teaching children about [stem cells] is a good one; I just didn't see this piece as being at a level that would be understandable." Still, Xu said, "I think this is a [great] way to educate the young generation about the contemporary, exciting works in biomedical science research and the great potential for its medical applications." linkurl:Super Stemmys: Doris and the Super Cells,;https://www.createspace.com/3391680 by David Granovsky, CreateSpace, California, 2009. 52 pp. ISBN: 978-1448645169. $19.95. Images courtesy of The Repair Stem Cell Institute.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Scientists criticize adult stem cell claim;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53610/
[24th September 2007]*linkurl:Less plasticity in adult stem cells;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53365/
[5th July 2007]*linkurl:Making a Play at Regrowing Hearts;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/24104/
[August 2006]*linkurl:Stem cells for heart disease? First things first;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/23141/
[22nd February 2006]