Life-saving science started in Chaffee

He lives in Ohio now, but Southeast Missouri proudly claims Charlie Mantel as one of our own. The Chaffee native's stem-cell research is being hailed as an advance that may save lives and change the face of medicine.

Who said those science fairs don't make a difference? That's where it all started for Mantel. It was 1973, and he won first place at the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair for his research project on fruit-fly genetics.

Now, the research that he and others from Indiana University conducted has provided evidence that adult stem cells, like the ones in bone marrow and other transplant tissues, are irreparably damaged by exposure to oxygen, but enclosing them in a chamber and using a drug already accessible to doctors could keep them alive.

As reported recently in a Southeast Missourian article detailing Mantel's discoveries, "The stem cells are important because like the early stem of a plant is able to grow into any part of that plant, stem cells can grow into almost any type of cell in the body." His research, therefore, increases the possibility that the body will accept the stem cells. These findings, said Mantel, "could make the difference between life and death for a transplant patient." Mantel calls the process extra physiological oxygen shock and stress, or EPHOSS.

When Mantel graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in chemistry, he served in the Air Force. He then continued his education in Ohio before settling into a 27-year career in biochemistry at Indiana University, which is where he has been engaged in the work that may give people another chance at life.

Mantel believes this is just the beginning of great things from EPHOSS, and we are proud that his beginning here in Southeast Missouri has the potential to play a vital role in the field of medicine.