Jeanne Loring, stem cell researcher and astronomy buff, at home with one of her telescopes.

Few medical advances equal stem cells in their promise to treat conditions that currently have no cure. From Parkinsons disease to AIDS to spinal-cord injuries, scientists are getting ever closer to realizing that promise for hundreds of millions of patients.

Yet when Jeanne Loring began her research pursuits in the late 1970s, few people knew what stem cells were. These microscopic wonders, with their ability to turn into many different types of cells in the body, fascinated her. She has devoted her career to studying them and encouraging others to do likewise.

Loring, in short, is a stem-cell evangelist.

She commands respect worldwide not only because she was one of the first people to become proficient in producing human embryonic stem cells in the lab, but also because her collaborative spirit has been foundational in expanding the stem-cell field to new generations of scientists.

At the request of the National Institutes of Health, she co-wrote a manual on the subject to train other researchers. She also provided knowledge that was crucial in courtroom battles against a patent that had put a stranglehold on stem cell studies nationwide. And she helped establish a trailblazing training program for stem-cell scientists in Southern California.

Today, as a leading figure at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Loring is widely considered both a stem-cell pioneer and a key voice on the latest issues in the field.

Shes a board member of the institute that funds and coordinates much of the stem-cell research in California. She revels in teamwork with experts at other scholarly institutions, in industry and from patient-advocacy groups. And shes internationally renowned for her findings on how stem cells might treat neurological diseases.

But Loring is happy to be more of a behind-the-scenes player.

Sometimes you hear about scientists who are pie-in-the-sky crazy people, and youve got to lasso them back down to Earth. Thats not a problem with Jeanne. Shes got her feet planted firmly on the Earth, said Daniel Ravicher, an attorney with the Santa Monica-based group Consumer Watchdog and founder of the Public Patent Foundation.

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Spreading the stem cell gospel