Refugees are children. More than three million of them. How old are you guys . We visited refugee camps in jordan. Six . When it was 111 degrees. There was no Running Water, no indoor plumbing, but there was a brandnew sesame street, produced with characters that these Young Refugees can learn from, as so many kids in america have for years. ticking this musical prodigy has been performing around the world since he was 11 years old. And hes blind. Which caught the attention of this neuroscientist, who wanted to see what would happen inside his brain. Okay. Shall we give it a shot . Yep. The part thats used for sight when he listens to music. This is what changes in his brain. Jeez, lights up. ticking im lesley stahl. Im bill whitaker. Im anderson cooper. Im sharyn alfonsi. Im scott pelley. Those stories, tonight, on 60 minutes. ticking ticking stahl tonight, dr. Jon lapook on assignment for 60 minutes. Lapook 20 years ago, scientists stunned the world when they announced they had decoded the genes that make up a human being. They hoped to use that genetic blueprint to advance something called gene therapy which locates and fixes the genes responsible for different diseases. As we first reported last year, a Clinical Trial at the National Institutes of health is doing exactly that, in an attempt to cure sickle cell anemia a devastating genetic disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year. For 15 months, we followed the scientists, and patients, who are ushering in a genetic revolution. Jennelle stephenson im excited. Ray stephenson today is the big day. Lapook its the day after christmas, 2017, and 27yearold Jennelle Stephenson has come with her father and brother from florida to the National Institutes of health, just outside washington, d. C. Jennelle stephenson good morning. Lapook shes one of a small group of patients to receive an infusion containing altered d. N. A. Nurse this is what they look like. Jennelle stephenson Merry Christmas to me. Brother best Christmas Present ever. Jennelle stephenson yay. Lapook the clear liquid in the bag contains jennelles stem cells, that have been genetically modified. Dr. Tisdale there are about 500 million in there. Jennelle stephenson oh, my goodness. Lapook the hope is the new d. N. A. In the cells will cure jennelle of sickle cell anemia a brutal disease that causes debilitating pain. At its worst, on a scale of zero to ten, how bad was your pain . Jennelle stephenson we can go beyond a ten. Its terrible, its horrible. Lapook pain where . Jennelle stephenson everywhere. My back, my shoulders, elbows, arms, legs, even my cheekbones, just pain. Lapook can you actually describe it . Jennelle stephenson its a very sharp, like, stabbing, almost feels like bonecrushing pain. Feels like someones kind of constricting your bones, and then releasing, constantly. Lapook pain from sickle cell can occur anywhere blood circulates. Thats because red blood cells, normally donutshaped, bend into an inflexible sickle shape, causing them to pile up inside blood vessels. The resulting traffic jam prevents the normal delivery of oxygen throughout the body, leading to problems that include bone deterioration, strokes and organ failure. The gene that causes sickle cell anemia evolved in places like subsaharan africa, because it protects people from malaria. There, millions have the disease, and its estimated more than 50 of babies born with it die before the age of five. Dr. Glassberg right on the bone there . Lapook in the united states, it affects 100,000 people mostly african americans. For jennelle, having the disease as a child often meant spending christmas in the hospital. As an adult, she struggled through pain to complete college, but keeping a job was tough because something as simple as walking up stairs could trigger a pain crisis. Do you have friends whove died from sickle cell . Jennelle stephenson i do. Yes, younger than me. Lapook and youve known this your whole life, growing up . Jennelle stephenson right. Lapook that you could potentially die early . Jennelle stephenson right. Yes. Lapook did you think you would die early . Jennelle stephenson i did, actually. When i hit about 22, i was like, you know, im for a sickle celler, im kind of middleaged right now. Lapook what are some of the things that youve always wanted to do that you couldnt do . Jennelle stephenson honestly, everybody laughs at me for this i just want to run, to be honest. Lapook things that most people would take for granted. Jennelle stephenson just basic things. Lapook one of the most cruel parts of the disease, jennelle and other patients have told us, is being accused of faking pain to get narcotics, being labeled a drugseeker. During one tri to the emergency department, when she fell to the floor in pain, a doctor refused to help her. Jennelle stephenson and im looking up at her, and im in tears, and, im like, im doing the best that i can. Lapook and ye thinking. , sometimedont liorry. Im in so much pain, and you think i just want some morphine. And it just makes me sad that some people in the medical Community Just dont get it. Dr. Francis collins so this would be my lab. Lapook dr. Francis collins is director of the National Institutes of health, the largest Biomedical Research agency in the world. He oversees a nearly 40 billion budget that funds more than 400,000 researchers worldwide. Clinton dr. Collins, please come up to the lectern. applause lapook dr. Collins was head of the human genome project at the n. I. H. In 2000 when he made a landmark announcement after a decade of work, scientists had finally decoded the genes that make up a human being. Dr. Collins today, we celebrate the revelation of the first draft of the human book of life. Lapook when did it all start for you . Dr. Collins i got excited about genetics as a firstyear medical student. A pediatric geneticist came to teach us about how genetics was relevant to medicine. And he brought patients to class, and one of the first patients he brought was a young man with Sickle Cell Disease who talked about the experience of sickle cell crises and how incredibly painful those are. And yet, it was all because of one single letter in the d. N. A. That is misplaced, a t that should have been an a. And that was profound. You could have all of that happen because of one letter that was misspelled. Lapook the double helix of d. N. A. Is made up of billions of pieces of genetic information. What dr. Collins is saying is. Out of all that, its just one error in the d. N. A. Code a t that should have been an a that causes sickle cell anemia. Fix that error, and you cure the disease. But figuring out how to do that would take more than 20 years of research. Do you remember when we used to sing lapook . And a little serendipity. Dr. Collins was playing in the n. I. H. Rock band in 2016 when his bass player hematologist dr. John tisdale started riffing on an idea. Dr. Tisdale wed finished setting up and went for a pizza, before dr. Collins i remember that. Dr. Tisdale before the gig. And at this point, i pitched to francis that it was really time that we do something definitive for Sickle Cell Disease. Lapook in the laboratory, dr. Tisdale and his collaborators created a gene with the correct spelling. Then, to get that gene into the patient, they used something with a frightening reputation h. I. V. , the virus that causes aids. It turns out, h. I. V. Is especially good at transferring d. N. A. Into cells. Dr. Tisdale so this shows the process. Lapook heres how it works. The corrected gene, seen here in yellow, is inserted into the h. I. V. Virus. Then, bone marrow stem cells are taken from a patient with sickle cell anemia. In the laboratory, those cells are combined with the virus carrying that new d. N. A. Dr. Tisdale this virus will then find its way to one of those cells and drop off a copy or two of the correctlyspelled gene. And then, these cells will go back to the patient. Lapook if the process works, the stem cells with the correct d. N. A. Will start producing healthy red blood cells. I can hear people, our viewers out there, thinking, wait a second, how do you know youre not going to get aids from the h. I. V. Virus . Dr. Tisdale the short answer is, we cut out the bits that cause infection in h. I. V. And we really replace that with the gene thats misspelled in Sickle Cell Disease, so that it transfers that instead of the infectious part. Lapook the stakes here are enormous. Dr. Collins yes. Lapook theres really very little safety net here, right . Dr. Collins make no mistake, were talking about very cuttingedge research, where the certainty about all the outcomes is not entirely there. We can look back at the history of gene therapy and see there have been some tragedies. Lapook deaths . Dr. Collins yes. Lapook in 1999, 18yearold Jesse Gelsinger received altered d. N. A. To treat a different genetic disease. He died four days later from a massive immune response. And in another trial, two children developed cancer. Jennelle stephenson understands this is a trial, with huge risks, and no guarantees. Jennelle stephenson this is oohearvethe n. I. H. Clinical cn december 2017, jennelle asked her brother, ray, for some help. Jennelle stephenson there goes ray, cutting my hair. Oh, snip. Lapook she decided to cut off all her hair, rather than watch it fall out from the massive dose of chemotherapy needed to suppress her immune rehe jcellowow to a leonal but. Im okay, it will grow back. Lapook a few days after the chemotherapy, jennelle received the infusion of genetically modified cells. Dr. Tisdale is it going good now . Nurse yes. Jennelle stephenson its just a waiting game. Lapook but the wait was a painful one. Not only for jennelle, but also for her father, ray. Ray stephenson let me fix this heating pad a little bit. Lapook . Who did what little he could as the effects of the chemotherapy kicked in, stripping jennelles throat and stomach of their protective layers. Jennelle stephnson oh, that hurts. Lapook she was unable to speak for a week, and lost 15 pounds. And, because having a severely weakened immune system means even a mild cold can turn deadly, jennelle had to stay in the hospital for nearly a month. After moving back to florida, she returned to the n. I. H. For periodic checkups. Dr. Tisdale these are her red blood cells. Lapook it didnt take long for dr. Tisdale to notice something was happening. This is jennelle before any treatment . Dr. Tisdale right. All across her blood you can see these really abnormal shapes. This one in particular is shaped like a sickle. Lapook nine months later, this is what dr. Tisdale saw not a sickle cell in sight. Was there ever a moment where you saw one of these normal looking smears and thought, is this the right patient . Dr. Tisdale oh, absolutely. When youre a scientist, youre skeptical all the time. So, first thing you do is look and make sure its that patient, go grab another one, make sure its the same. And weve done all that. And, indeed, her blood looks normal. Teacher move. Switch your arms and move. Lapook remember, jennelle used to struggle just to walk up a flight of stairs. Teacher and you fall. Lapook . And a fall like this would have landed her in the hospital. Teacher boom. Yeah. Good job, you did it. Bam. Lapook jennelle. You look amazing. Jennelle stephenson thank you lapook i have to say, i was a little nervous when you were thrown and you went down on the mat. Jennelle stephenson it was nothing. It was nothing. My body just felt strong. Lapook tell me about the adjustment that you need to make, to go from the old you to the new you. Jennelle stephenson my body, it almost felt like it was, like, itching to do more. And i was like, all right, well, lets go swimming today. Lets go to the gym today. Im like, all right, my body loves this. I kind of like it because my, i guess, all my endorphins started pumping. Lapook the endorphin high, something you had never experienced. Jennelle stephenson never experienced before. Yep. Pthrough your head as you were watching jennelle being thrown down to the mat . Ray stephenson i was just saying, thank you, lord. Thank you for medical science. And thank you for giving r w li Jennelle Stephenson new life, indeed. Lynndrick holmes ive never lived before. Lapook 18 other adults with sickle cell anemia have undergone the same gene therapy all responded well, except one who died from another cause. Dr. Francis collins says it will take years to improve the treatment so it can be made more widely available. Dr. Collins heres another dream. There are 7,000 genetic diseases for which we know the precise d. N. A. Misspelling. Couldnt this same strategy, this same set of principles work for lots of those, maybe someday all of them . Lapook youve been working on this for decades. Youre at a moment which is significant. Dr. Collins to lead the human genome project and to put that foundation in place. And now, to see that emerging not just as hopedfor advances, but real data showing cures for people. Lapook you just used the curing word. laughs youre willing to say that . Dr. Collins i believe that e. Ive got to be careful. But from every angle that i know how to size this up, this looks like a cure. ticking stahl there are more People Living as refugees around the world today than at any time since the second world war. And with conflicts dragging on for years, being a refugee now often means not going home for decades. Thats literally a lifetime, for millions of Young Children. As we first reported last fall, the refugee crisis has sparked a partnership between two of the countrys leading Nonprofit Institutions Sesame Workshop, creator of sesame street, and the International Rescue committee the i. R. C. A Refugee Assistance Organization originally founded by albert einstein. For 50 years, sesame street has been teaching Young Children that one plus one equals two; but by teaming up with the i. R. C. To help the youngest refugees, its hoping that one plus one can now add up to farme this is the zaatari refugee it houses 77,000 syrian refugees. This is azraq camp. It houses another 35,000. Its hard to fathom that these tens of thousands are just a fraction of the more than six million syrians now living as refugees most of them for the last four to eight years. And nearly half of all of them are children. So this is the big waterhole. The first thing we noticed when we arrived at azraq camp with our guide, Laila Hussein of the i. R. C. , was the kids. Little kids carrying the water. Laila hussein yeah. Stahl theres no Running Water here, no indoor plumbing. Toilets are outside and shared by six families. The day we visited it was 111 degrees. Ask these young fellows if they come to get water every day. Hussein they carry the water. Stahl you carry . How old are you guys . How old . Stahl six. Eight meeting the needs of kids like this. Six. Is not what the humanitarian aid system was set up for. David miliband the humanitarian sector has prided itself on keeping people alive. Stahl David Miliband is head of the International Rescue committee. Traditionally, i guess that refugees flee war, go home when the war ends. Miliband yeah, the theory is that you just keep people alive until they can go home. But we know now that the average length of displacement for a refugee is close to 20 years stahl 20 years . Miliband close to 20 years. And thats why its a total tragedy that less than 2 of all humanitarian aid funding goes on education, even though half of the worlds refugees are kids. Stahl and only a tiny sliver of that 2 goes to educating Young Children. Miliband and thats a problem, because we know that its the earliest years that count the most. Staho one knows the importance of those earliest years and how to reach, and teach, kids in them better than sesame street. 8, 9, 10, 11. Stahl its been using television to educate kids in the u. S. , including tackling tough subjects like racism and death, for five decades. And its done local versions in other countries. In 2016, Sesame Workshop and the i. R. C. Had been strategizing about how they could collaborate to help refugee children, when a new competition was announced. The Macarthur Foundation is launching a new competition. Stahl the prize a stunning 100 million. Miliband the Macarthur Foundation offered 100 million to any organization who was ready to, solve a big global problem. Stahl a global problem that was intractable. Miliband we defined the global problem we wanted to tackle was trauma, toxic stress among refugee children in the middle east. We can reach literally millions of children. Stahl in the final pitch to the competitions judges, miliband and his Sesame Workshop counterpart sherrie westin, presented a twopronged plan Sesame Workshop would create a new show for the middle east. Sherrie westin we will introduce new local muppets. Stahl and the i. R. C. Would dramatically expand its services to Young Refugee kids directly, including where theyre living. And they gave you 100 million. Miliband yeah, 100 million is not as much as it sounds. Because its stahl it isnt . Miliband its over stahl it sounds huge. Miliband its over laughs five years. And were delivering inperson services to over a million kids and educational content via tv to nearly eight million kids. So its a big enterprise. Stahl production of the new television show, ahlan simsim, meaning welcome sesame, is well underway in jordan. It stars a spunky purple girl muppet named basma, a boy muppet, jad, who has just moved into the neighborhood, and their pal and comedic sidekick, a mischievous baby goat. Jad isnt labeled a refugee on the show, but there are hints. Hes voiced by a syrian puppeteer, and in this episode, where the other characters are showing each other their favorite childhood toys, jad cant. Jad translated my toy is not with me. I left it behind in my old home when i came here. Scott cameron this was one of the more challenging episodes to craft. Stahl scott cameron, a longtime sesame producer who is running this new show, explained that the primary focus is not on letters and numbers, but on emotions like fear, anger, loneliness, and determination. This episode deals with jads sadness about his lost toy drum, but also basmas feelings of caring for her friend. Cameron we want every episode to identify an emotion, but then give really concrete actions so that children can learn what to do. Stahl so what does she do . Cameron so, she decides shes going to make a drum to replace the drum that jad no longer has stahl its so sweet. The show will air in 20 countries in the middle east, north africa, and the gulf starting in february. And if youre wondering how refugees will see t, we were surprised to see that satellite dishes are prevalent in the camps, where the i. R. C. Has been ramping up its part of the plan direct services to Young Refugee children, as we saw in this Early Childhood center the i. R. C. Runs in the azraq camp, where preschool age kids can come to play and learn. Video clips and storybooks featuring basma and jad will soon be part of lessons here. Given these childrens age, Laila Hussein told us its likely none of them has ever been outside this camp. Hussein when i meet children in the camp, i notice that they have very limited imagination. Stahl and very limited information. Hussein i t chdren. They dont know that the egg coming from a chicken. Stahl really . Hussein they dont know that the fish live in the sea. Its our responsibility to bring the world inside the camp. We cant, like, take them out. But we can bring the world inside. Stahl and bring the world inside their makeshift homes. The i. R. C. Runs a Home Visit Program that sends trained volunteers refugees themselves like this woman to visit 3,000 Refugee Families once a week, each time with an age appropriate educational activity. Here a homemade picture book for 20month old belal. Bisse, he says. Cat. What does the cat say . Meow. Stahl the idea is to teach the child and more importantly, encourage essential onewith the pa. Is one onine children inthamth o their home in syria by intense shelling and now live, eat, and sleep in two adjoining Metal Structures brutal in the 110 degree heat. So how many years have you been in this camp . Hamsni. Five. Hamsni. Stahl five years . The older boys told us they still remember life back in syria. What do you remember . translated i remember our home. I also remember my friends, the school i attended, my granddads house. Stahl but the younger kids only know this life. Their mom told us the home visits have been a huge help as she tries to parent under these conditions. translated before, i didnt give belal enough praise, because i was always busy with housework, cooking. Stahl you pay more attention to the children after these visits . translated for sure. Ev oneanother, they developed ar bond. Like if one hands the other a glass of water, the other would go thank you. translated she now forgets to give me attention. Stahl laughs translated not at all. Hes getting all the attention. Stahl how would you describe the pressures that these parents are under . Miliband the pressures that these people face are not just the material deprivation. Stahl lost everything. Miliband but the greatest danger they face is hopelessness. These are people who want something if not for themselves anymore, then at least for their children. Stahl some of the most vulnerable refugee children are those whose families live outside the refugee camps, in what are called informal tented settlements basically tents on the side of the road. Tens of thousands of families live this way, and the i. R. C. Is bringing its Home Visit Program to them as well. We watched as this volunteer worked with yearandahalfold mohamad and his dad, a day laborer on a nearby farm, on the concepts of in and out. Mohamads mother didnt want to be filmed, but his grandmother was eager to speak with us. Ahlan wassahlan. Welcome. Stahl their smiles and welcome were warm, as was their pride in showing us the home they left behind in syria. But the pain of living this way for the last five years was never far from the surface. translated sometimes i am able to hold myself together, but sometimes i cant. I sometimes wish i was in the desert with no one around me to scream out all the negative energy inside of me. Stahl their despair was palpable, which is why one goal of these visits is to help parents keep from passing it on to their Young Children. I see you with your sons. I can tell that you dont want them to feel any of your unhappiness. translated youre absolutely right. Even sometimes when i am troubled, and i see them, i smile for them. I want them always to feel happy, and reassured. Jad stahl like the homemade drum basma gives jad to replace the one he left behind, the hope is that the combination of this show, and the array of services along with it, will give these kids a fighting start. Studies to measure the impact are already part of the plan, so if it works. Youre gonna have this model for refugees around the world. Miliband theres no reason not to tako are ingladesh, from h sudan uganda. Cas a l that should work for every child whos forced to endure the trauma of being a refugee. Stahl you know, when people see the footage that we shot, theyre not gonna see how hot it was. And theyre gonna see children welldressed, obviously fed. Miliband youre not going to be able to see the moments of hopelessness. But i hope that by seeing the smiles, youll see the potential. And youll come away thinking, what a waste not to give these kids every chance and to give more kids the chance of what these kids are getting. Stahl basma and jad made their debut in february, and shows are being broadcast in 20 countries. With home visits suspended due to covid19, the i. R. C. Is sending games and learning activities to parents virtually, and sesame has broadcast two specials with basma and jad to address kids needs in the crisis. Mend, tremfya® can help adults with moderate to s when was the last time your property tawhat . L went down . Never. Are you kidding me . For years, the residential burden has gone up. While the corporate burden has gone down. Prop 15 reverses that. It closes corporate loopholes and invests in schools, small business, and firefighters. And when the big corporations pay more, your tax bill goes down. Thats right. A savings of a hundred twentyone dollars a year for the average home. Give homeowners a break. Vote yes on 15. ticking alfonsi every so often, someone so young does something so amazing you cant help but wonder, how do they do that . Thats what happened the first time we heard Matthew Whitaker play piano. Matthew is a jazz pianist who is blind, and since the age of 11, hes been performing around the world. Hes been called a prodigy, and as we noted when we first aired this story in february, his talent is so extraordinary, hes also caught the attention of scientists who are now studying his brain and trying to understand his vision of music. Matthew whitaker doesnt just colex rmonies andays with it. Isl improvising at lightning speed. Its acoustic acrobatics performed over 88 keys and it is not for the faint of heart. Matthew made his first appearance at the new orleans jazz festival. We watched backstage with his dad. The sheer complexity and spontaneity of his sets like this look ma, no ands moment make the most seasoned musicians sweat, and jazz fans go wild. He plays with his shoes off so he can feel the pedals, and his head turned so he can feel the crowd. Its new orleans jazz fest. This is the tiffany of jazz festivals. Was this a dream . Matthew whitaker it is amazing to be here. Like, this is where jazz started. Alfonsi do you get nervous before a big show like this . Matthew whitaker honestly, i was a tiny bit nervous. But, you know, once i started playing, i i felt good. Jazz fest is a jambalaya for the senses. Alfonsi its a lot of music coming at you Matthew Whitaker its a lot alfonsi we negotiated our way through the thick roux of humidity, suffocating crowds, and the 14 stages of music that, often boil over into the fairgrounds. Can you hear all the different stages . Are you like, is this like overwhelming . Were right behind the tulked ae noticed matthew was able to cut through the sensory assault and identify songs in seconds. Matthew whitaker hes playing just closer. Yeah. Just a closer walk with thee. Alfonsi you got that song just that quickly . Matthew whitaker yeah. Alfonsi i heard like three notes and you already know what song it is . Lord matthew grew up in hackensack, new jersey. Moses whitaker he is just happy all the time. Alfonsi his parents, moses and may whitaker say matthew had an ear for music even before he could even talk. Tell me about the first time he picked up an instrument. Moses whitaker he was playing twinkle, twinkle, little star. But he was playing it with both hands. Matt was playing the chords and the melody of the song at the same alfonsi had he had a lesson at this point . Moses whitaker he hadnt had a lesson or anything. And he was three years old. So my question was, okay, who showed him how to do that . Somebody had to show matthew how to how to play this song. And nobody showed him. Alfonsi Matthew Whitaker was born at 24 weeks. He weighed one pound 11 ounces. His parents were told he had survival. A 50 chance of one of the many complications he faced was retinopathy of prematurity, a disease which can lead to blindness. May whitaker i think at the time i i didnt think he was going to make it. So it was, you know, just just very scary. Alfonsi may and Moses Whitaker watched helplessly as matthew braved 11 surgeries to try and save his sight. After two anxious years, they decided they didnt want matthew to endure anymore. Even if it meant hed be permanently blind. Moses whitaker we just felt like he was going through too much. We were going through too much. Because the doctors werent seeing it was getting any better. We just said, you know what . Thats enough. Well just deal with it as it is. Alfonsi they told you he might not even speak . Moses whitaker exactly. They said that he might not crawl. And he might not ever walk. Because he needed those things to see. You know, most kids learn to crawl they learn to walk because they want to try to get to something. Well, matthew couldnt see to get to anything. So a lot of his toys and stuff we had to have sounds. So that he would want to crawl want to reach those things. Alfonsi matthew did start crawling towards music. Sometimes sliding up to the speaker to feel the music. No one in his family was a musician, but his grandfather bought him his first keyboard when he was threeyears old. How complicated were the songs he was playing early on . Moses whitaker they were Nursery Rhymes more so than anything. So they werent that complicated. But what he was doing was complicated. Because most kids dont play with both hands. And they dont play chords and the harmonies and all of that. And matt was doing that. Alfonsi so you realized he has a gift . Moses whitaker yes. Alfonsi lets get him a teacher. Moses whitaker yes, which was the difficult part. Alfonsi why was that the difficult part . Moses whitaker because at the time, we got a lot of answers where people were saying hes too young. He was threeyearsold at the time. Or, i dont know how to teach a blind child. Alfonsi dalia sakas agreed to meet matthew. Sakas is the director of music studies at the filomen m. Dagostino greenberg music school in new york city a school for the visually impaired. Moses whitaker so we brought him over. And dalia played something on the piano, and matt repeated it. Then she played Something Else and matt repeated it. She said bring him in. Well make the exception. Everybody sing amen everybody sing amen alfonsi dalia has been teaching matthew ever since. She is a classically trained concert pianist. Dalia sakas i was performing a couple of recitals and the dvorak piano quintet is a piece actually for a piano and string quartet. So theres five of us. So matt and his mom came to hear, you know, the night i played. He comes in saturday morning. I walk into the studio and hes playing the opening of the dvorak quintet. You know, and then the cello comes in and he knew that whole thing. And i thought, oh, very nice. Alfonsi dvoraks piano quintet is a challenging piece for five musicians. Matthew was playing his version of all five parts on his piano. Can he listen to a piece of music for the first time and then play it . Does he have that ability . Sakas yeah. Alfonsi just hearing it once . Sakas yeah. He can pretty much get it. Alfonsi thats insane sakas yeah, it is insane. Alfonsi yeah. Sakas yeah. laughs alfonsi it could be exhausting . Sakas yeah, well it was scary more than exhausting. Alfonsi why scary . Sakas because you didnt want to blow it. Because you have someone of this talent, of this creativity, this enthusiasm. You dont want to squelch that. You dont want to mess up. Hes obviously, you know, got something to offer to the world, and so you want to make that possible. Alfonsi she did. By the time he was 11, matthew was performing around the world. His first paying gig was in capri, italy, where he cut his chops with seasoned jazz musicians. Pthan 200 clubs and concert hals around the world. That caught the attention of doctor charles limb. Limb, a musician himself, is a surgeon and neuroscientist who uses m. R. I. Brain scans to better understand how exceptionally creative people do what they do. Whats interesting about a kid like matthew . Why do you want to look at his brain . Charles limb i think anytime somebody watches matthew play piano the first thing that you think is, how does he do that . Except rather than just wondering im actually trying to answer the question. Alfonsi specifically, doctor limb wants to know why the brains of certain artists seem better wired to give rise to new ideas. In matthews case, improvising. But when doctor limb approached the whitakers, they were dubious. May whitaker because somebody comes to you and says, can we put your son in this scan . And right away youre thinking, you know, lab rabbit, or you know, what are they trying to do with my child . Alfonsi once doctor limb also explained other artists had participated, the whitakers agreed to let him scan matthews brain. He brought matthew to this m. R. I. Facility at the university of california, san francisco, and put matthew in the scanner with a mini keyboard on his lap. Limb okay, shall we give it a shot . Matthew whitaker yup alfonsi matthew played a melody, with his feet keeping time, while doctor limb and his team recorded his brains activity levels with the m. R. I. Scanner. Limb what youre seeing on this computer screen is some brain data that we obtained from matthew. Alfonsi then doctor limb put matthew through a different series of auditory tests. He showed us the results. Limb so we started out not by looking at music, but by looking at somebody like this who would give a lecture that most people would consider to be a little bit boring. In an effort to alleviate the effect of the anyone . Anyone . Limb this is what happened when he was listening to that. And then, interestingly, because he is blind we looked at his visual cortex. And we didnt see any significant activity there at all alfonsi so nothings happening. Limb exactly. And then we switched the soundtrack for him. And we put on a band that he knows quite well, snarky puppy. This is what changes in his brain. Alfonsi jeez. Lights up. Look closely. This is his visual cortex listening to the boring lecture, and this is it listening to music. Limb pretty remarkable. His entire brain is stimulated by music. His visual cortex is activated throughout. It seems like his brain is taking that part of the tissue thats not being stimulated by sight and using it, or maybe helping him, to perceive music with it. Alfonsi so hes using that visual part of his brain to kind of see music as it were . Limb exactly, yeah. And so, its sort of borrowing that part of the brain and rewiring it to help him hear music. Alfonsi when they told you that the visual cortex of your brain Matthew Whitaker lit up like for music. Like, that was amazing. I didnt even know that that was happening. Alfonsi what do you think it means . Matthew whitaker i love music. laughs alfonsi his love of music has never been in doubt, but matthews teacher dalia sakas wanted to make sure matthew wasnt just a flash in the pan prodigy. Matthew whitaker ah, i just switched the i keep switching those alfonsi she wanted him to be a literate musician. Sakas where is the second beat . Alfonsi so she decided he needed to learn to read braille music. To do that, you have to feel, read and remember dots that represent the music, first for the right hand, and then for the left hand. Its a painstakingly slow process. Matthew whitaker how far do you want to go to . Sakas i dont know. Lets keep just going, okay . Alfonsi and matthew does not like to slow down. Stay still. Stay still. When we interviewed him, he was exceedingly polite and exceedingly bored. Matthew whitaker yawns my gosh im so sorry alfonsi youre fine matthew just wants to play. Matthew whitaker may i go to the piano . Alfonsi so he did. africa by toto at the piano, he is pure joy. Jumping from the classics. To beyoncee. crazy in love by beyoncee but whats so special is how he takes those songs, any song oh, you are speaking to my soul now naughty girl by beyoncee improvising it on the spot to make it his own. Matthews latest album is called now hear this. His vision of music that a critic noted sounds like matthew is playing with six hands. cheers and applause cheers and applause Matthew Whitaker thank you so much ticking friends at 60 minutes pay tribute to producer katie texter, who passed away before finishing this story, at 60minutesovertime. Com. Taking california for a ride. Companies like uber, lyft, doordash. Breaking state employment laws for years. Now these multibilliondollar companies wrote deceptive prop 22 to buy themselves a new law. To deny drivers the rights they deserve. No sick leave. No workers comp. No unemployment benefits. Vote no on the deceptive uber, lyft, doordash prop 22. One ride california doesnt want to take. ticking stahl im lesley stahl. Well be back next week, with another edition of 60 minutes. ticking captioning funded by cbs and ford. We go further, so you can. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org