Paralysed teenager given free stem cell storage

News Reporter

Thursday 20 October 2011

A SCOTS teenager paralysed in a car crash days after receiving an offer of a place at Oxford University has become one of the first people to store his stem cells in the hope they might be used in future to repair his injury.

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Helen McArdle

Sam Dickinson, 19, from Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, gave a blood sample from which stem cells were extracted and stored at the Oristem facility in Glasgow, the UK’s first adult stem cell bank which opened in June.

It is hoped as science advances, the ultra-naïve pluripotent adult stem cells could be used in everything from treating cancer and dementia to regenerating damaged tissue, including spinal trauma. The service normally costs just under £3000 but Sam was offered the chance to store his stem calls at the centre, operated by Glasgow-based firm Pharmacells, for free after the company’s non-executive director, Professor Andrew Porter, heard of his experience.“I was a little bit unsure to begin with but, given the way that science is going, it could only be a good thing,” said Sam. “It’s sensible not to pin your hopes on any one thing or to expect anything, but we’re definitely hopeful for the future that there will be treatments that come around and whether or not the stem cells they’ve taken will be useful for that, we’ll just have to wait and see. “There’s nothing to lose in having them stored there, and the younger they are the better. The guys at Oristem were keen to stress all they are doing is storing the cells – it will be up to other people to work out how to use them.”A keen rugby player and academic high-flyer, Sam had already achieved five As at Higher and was “over the moon” after being offered a conditional place at Oxford University a few days before Christmas in 2009. The sixth-year pupil at Mackie Academy was studying for four Advanced Highers and looked set to gain the minimum two As in his exams to secure his place when tragedy struck. As Sam, his parents and younger brother, Andrew, set off to spend Christmas with his mother’s family in Bath, their car skidded on black ice and overturned on the A90 just a few miles from their home. While the rest of the family escaped with minor injuries, the teenager’s head struck the inside of the vehicle and his neck was partially broken. He was rushed to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and then airlifted to Glasgow where he spent the next seven months enduring gruelling physiotherapy and rehabilitation at the city’s specialist spinal units. Despite being left almost immobile – Sam has only slight movement in his right hand and leg and severely impaired sensory functions – the then 17-year-old was determined to carry on with his studies. He was tutored in hospital and used a scribe to sit Advanced Higher maths and French in summer 2010, astonishing medics with his determination and defying the odds to achieve not only As in both subjects, but the highest mark in Advanced Higher French in the whole of Scotland. His mother Sarah said: “The doctors were taking the view it was a really big ask – not because intellectually his capacity was compromised, but the stamina was seriously affected. They were saying it takes at least six months just to get over the pure trauma.”A year later, Mrs Dickinson was attending a charity event organised by her son’s former school to raise funds for spinal research when she was approached by Professor Porter from Pharmacells.She said: “When Professor Porter came up to me and started talking about stem cells I was thinking ‘don’t I need to have another child? – don’t we need an embryo for that?’ “I wasn’t very well-informed. When he was telling me ‘we can extract these naive stem cells from your son’, I assumed this must be a highly invasive procedure and that’s not necessarily a good thing for Sam. So it was amazing to think they could do this so easily with just a vial of blood.”Sam underwent the procedure in September and has since begun a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. Athol Haas, chief executive of Pharmacells, said: “Sam is a very bright young man and has all his life ahead of him. We wish him all the very best with his studies and hope he achieves his full potential.”

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Paralysed teenager given free stem cell storage

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