It sounds like science-fiction — healing the heart with stem cells from fat, curing sickle-cell anemia with bone-marrow transplants and preventing lung cancer with a vaccine.
But at Kentucky's two largest universities, researchers are trying to turn those theories in reality — and along the way transforming Kentucky into a growing center for globally significant medical breakthroughs.
A decade of public and private investment into local research has started to pay dividends, offering hope in a state with some of the nation's highest rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.
It was jump-started by Bucks for Brains, a multi-million-dollar spending initiative launched with the state's 1998-2000 budget that has brought top researchers to state universities.