Stem cell transplants offer the prospect of "science fiction-like" treatments for genetic disorders. The cells are harvested from fertilised embryos and aborted foetuses, and because of these ethical issues leading researchers in America have had their funding cut by the Bush government, forcing sufferers to head to Eastern Europe where treatment is more readily available.
This programme follows Stefano Tricarico - a 20-year-old from Italy with terminal muscular dystrophy, and other patients - to the Ukraine to see if transplanted foetal stem-cells injections really can help save or improve his, and other people"s lives. The treatment is offered by a Ukrainian doctor at a private clinic. But critics say the work has not been properly scientifically tested. Is this the future of science, or a fraud?
Twenty-year-old Stefano Tricarico is dying.
He has Duchene's Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a genetic disease which means he lacks a protein called dystrophine that allows his muscles to work and grow.
Without it, they slowly waste away, leaving him virtually paralysed.
Most boys with this disease die in their mid to late 20s.
But Stefano and his family are looking for a cure.
"When you are too attached to life, you never want to leave it," he says, and he decides to make the journey from Italy to a clinic in Ukraine that he thinks might be able to save him.
Professor Alexander Smikodub offers stem cell therapy from a clinic called EmCell based in one of Kiev's biggest hospitals.
Stem cells have the ability to reproduce themselves by dividing and multiplying into identical cells.
This means they have the potential to form any type of tissue, therefore offering the possibility of repairing every tissue in the body too.
Professor Smikodub says stem cell treatment holds the key to keeping Stefano, and possibly millions of others with degenerative diseases, alive.
To most of the world, the stem cell revolution is still many years away, but the clinic's work has its roots in events that took place in Ukraine nearly 20 years ago.
In 1986, when the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, radioactive dust was spread across the region, creating a massive long-term health problem.
In the Kiev region alone, nearly one million people still suffer its effects, with conditions ranging from diabetes to blood anaemia and cancer.
It forced the state to fund new research into repairing tissue and blood cells and as a result of this research, Professor Smikodub was able to use stem cells on patients in the early 1990s.
"While everywhere else they were only thinking about research, we were already working with it in practice," he says.
Ethical qualms
Ukraine is a pioneer of stem cell therapy but other countries consider the treatment controversial.
Leading researchers in the US have had their funding cut by the Bush administration because the cells are harvested from fertilised embryos and aborted foetuses.
With the science left unproven, many desperately ill people like Stefano feel they are left with little option but to travel to countries where the treatment is permitted.
Prof Smikodub uses stem cells from foetuses aborted at between three and eight weeks.
From this material there are three different types of stem cells extracted and coloured according to their group.
One colour is given for stem cells which will develop into skin, brain and hair. Another is given for blood, bone, and muscle tissue, and another for stem cells for internal organs, like the liver or pancreas.
These are kept frozen in what is called a single-cell suspension and are tested before being transplanted into each patient.
"I often feel I'm the executor of God's will"
Uncertain value
The Tricarico family found out about this treatment on the internet.
"I must do everything so that he won't suffer," says Stefano's mother, Grazia.
With the help of their town and local TV station they raised enough money to allow the family to travel to Kiev.
"I often feel I'm the executor of God's will," claims Prof Smikodub.
He claims his research shows that stem cell therapy massively increases the flexibility of damaged muscles.
But other stem cell researchers doubt it could be so effective - like Professor Mehmet, a stem cell researcher at Imperial College in London.
He states: "Early animal experiments from my own lab and from several other labs around the world have shown that very, very small numbers of stem cells actually make it in terms of reaching the site of damage... because most of these cells are dying."
"We haven't found the correct way to persuade them to carry on differentiating and proliferating once we've put them into the body," he adds.
Prof Smikodub is widely criticised for his lack of evidence and data concerning his stem cell treatment.
Western journals and clinicians expect scientific breakthroughs to come with supporting evidence, so have rejected his work as nothing more than anecdote.
Prof Smikodub does not except this criticism.
"So does this mean that I have to write an article which will be published in a journal, and that only after that will I be respected?" he asks.
"No, I do not think that my mission lies there. My mission is to cure, to help as many patients as possible, and then I can be respected."
Stefano's family began a TV campaign to raise money for Stefano's trip
Right to choose
After the treatment Stefano claims that he feels better and more flexible.
Without independent clinical trials, it is impossible to know if this is a breakthrough, or little more than a placebo effect.
Stefano says he feels no ill effects, and does not care about the criticism of Prof Smikodub's work.
He just hopes that they will not stop him - or others - from receiving treatment he believes in.
"I realised that it was the only chance I had, if I wanted to continue to have a decent life."
Last Hope Clinic was broadcast on Thursday, 17 November, 2005 at 1900 GMT on BBC Two.
