Stem Cell Symphony: A Novel

Stuart Matheson, 32, is trapped in a nursing home as well as his body, eerily immobile at the last stage of Huntington's Disease. Kelsey Raye is a science writer feeling guilty about the recent deaths of her parents. She volunteers for hospice and is assigned to Stuart. She's a PhD, he never finished school, but they share a love of rock music and disdain of religion. They instantly bond.

As Kelsey plays her iPod daily for Stuart, he improves - an impossibility - and when she misses a few days, he backslides. She deduces that Stuart's gains follow hearing U2 or their imitators. Kelsey, who writes about stem cells, thinks the frequency of the arpeggios is turning on stem cells in Stuart's brain. She shares her idea with researcher Peter Holloway, but evil Nurse Smithies overhears and outs them to a tabloid. Meanwhile, Peter scans Stuart's brain. He's getting better!

All hell breaks loose when the tabloid hits. The government shuts down Peter's lab and confiscates Kelsey's iPod, while anti-stem cell protestors harass them -- just as Peter discovers how music stimulates stem cells. Then something unexpected happens. Did science fail, or was it the anti-science forces?

The underlying love story and comical cast of characters propel this parallel tale of emerging spirituality and an evolving medical technology. Many of the characters and scenes are based on real people, and the science dead-on accurate - with the one tweak of the music turning on stem cells.

It could happen.
Customer Review: Entertaining, informative, and inspiring
It's very refreshing to read a novel that is so well grounded in science and real life. This book has all the fictional elements of a great novel, yet you learn some things about science along the way through the book. I particularly liked the section on Congressional testimony. And I can personally relate to some of the nursing home scenes. Great job!
Customer Review: A good read AND informative!
Ricki Lewis' novel is the story of a young science writer who, as a hospice volunteer, finds herself inexplicably helping a patient with an incurable disease. It is current both in terms of discussing the science of the stem cell technology we hear so much about these days, but also in its musical references, like U2 and Coldplay (two artists included in a recent planetarium show I visited in the Rose Space Center in NYC.) There is a love interest with a twist, and I found myself gripped by the unknowns presented in the thickening plots. The cast of characters was eccentric but believable. Their actions felt so real sometimes, I found myself wondering if portions of the story were based on real events. What I perhaps liked the best was that the uplifting ending suggested that the miracle of art (in this case music) can inexplicably have a profound scientific effect on our bodies in ways we have perhaps not yet discovered. If there are not medical researchers out there testing out Dr. Lewis' "novel" hypotheses- there should be! I found myself learning about science while enjoying the story. This was a good read- I highly suggest it!

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