Before I met the monster on the road, I had been on my way South to Los Angeles for the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC). This was an especially important meeting at which the big disease team grants would be decided, as much as $20 million each, loans or grants. Some projects would go forward, others would die. My cell phone rang. Pulling off the freeway and fumbling through my suitcase (keep ringing, keep ringing!), I found the phone, opened it, recognized the numbers on the screen. Dr. Hans Keirstead…. I dreaded what the voice might say. He had a project in question: a way to use embryonic stem cells to fight Spinal Muscular Atrophy: important not only to the children who suffer and die from this terrible condition, but to the entire field of research. (Read on …)