In Search of the Lost Cord

"Late on a June afternoon in 2000, Roy Holley rounded the bend of a twisting Rocky Mountain road to discover the crumpled hulk of his daughter's car. He was to learn that 18-year-old Melissa had suffered a devastating injury to her spinal cord, leaving her completely paralyzed and without sensation below her mid-chest line." "Several months later, a team of doctors made a stunning announcement. Melissa Holley had recovered movement in her toes and legs.". "Shortly after Melissa's accident, physicians had tried an experimental procedure involving the injection of immune-system cells directly into her crushed spinal cord. It's possible that her partial recovery was linked to this treatment. There is genuine hope that Melissa may one day rebound from an injury so grave that the destruction of her spinal cord had been pronounced "complete" - a verdict that up to now has left virtually all its victims paralyzed for life.". "In Search of the Lost Cord is Luba Vikhanski's chronicle of the quest for such a cure. The author takes the reader on a journey around the world to laboratories in Spain, Sweden, Israel, Canada, and the United States, where talented researchers have defied the odds and tirelessly pursued the regeneration of the spinal cord. For decades career-minded scientists had avoided this field entirely because the goals were considered so hopeless. Yet Vikhanski - in gripping prose that brings to life both the science and the scientists' struggle - shows how a small number of dedicated individuals learned from each other's successes and failures to make hope real. The resulting international effort to restore function to the severely injured spinal cord could well be on the verge of a breakthrough."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.