We hope it rescues the brain and a mothers incredible journey to help her girl. Dr crystal dilworth is a molecular neuroscientist. Stint she introductions us to a scientist out to change the im phil torres. Im an entomologist. Thats the team, lets do some science. Bsh [ music ] hey, any, welcome to techknow, im phil torres, joined by crystal dilworth, and shini somara. You are about to take us on a journey, an experimental matthews. This is an emotional piece. We followed the retrieval of graces umbilical cord blues cell, and we had access to where they condition those cells for treatment in the hope of saving her life. Lets take a look. Reporter it was just after 8 30 by the time sara matthews, her mum and baby grace stepped out of the pickup truck. And into the North Carolina night. This isnt the first time they have come to the Ronald Mcdonald house mere Duke University, and it will not be the last. They are here for little grace. When did you find out that grace had the condition . It was a 20 week ultrasound, went to find out if it was a boy or girl. Waited for the doctor to get us. She came and told us that she had bad news. Reporter grace had brain. Me and my husband had been married for 12 years and figured we couldnt have children and all of a sudden i was pregnant. Thats where her name was grace. Sorry. And to find out she has something wrong with her. Sorry. Reporter if you look at grace you can make out the outline of a shunt put in the day after she was born. It helps to remove fluid from the brain putting it back into the body. It should keep the head from the brain, but the swelling and fluid has caused problems to graces brain. Now doctors hope it can be reversed using cells from core blood. Tomorrow she will super a treatment that will hopefully save her brain. Reporter the choice to save the core blood, was that mothers intuition. Yes, it was. If it was something to would help her, wed do all we can. Had you read up on what core blood was and how to apply it. No, i had no idea what it could do. Reporter its after 10am. The matthews have been at the hospital for hours. Grace has been weighed, measured and probed, shes settled into a corner room at dukes Childrens Hospital. Shes a lot more peaceful. Weighed. Not at all. Reporter now what happens . Now we wait. The nurse comes in and evaluates her in here, and we wait. Reporter how are you feeling at this point . Good, really good. Reporter this is the day grace receives an infusion of core blood, part of a study aiming to put data behind one of the most exciting areas of research, the use of core blood to heel brain injuries. She has history and a physical that was done today. Everything looks good. She is set and ready for her infusion this afternoon. The core Blood Programme at Duke University is the brainchild of this doctor, more than the head of this programme. She inspired and created it. Stem cell therapy has been around for a while, but not blood. Right. The word stem cell can be confusing, because its used in a lot of different ways. We are using stem cells from core blood, which is the babys blood left over. It used to be discarded as chemical waste. It was discovered there is blood stem cells, and now we found out there are stem cells of many different blood and tissues and can be frozen. Reporter for grace now, who needs it now. Its before noon. Grace is ready. Now the scientists will take over and get the core blood ready. This is where graces core blood is stored. Im at Duke University core blood laboratory. The temperature is minus 300 farenheit. What happens is technologists take the samples out and prepare it while grace waits in the hospital room. This is a thermogenesis bioar chive freezer. We store cordless samples in here. Reporter are there many here. Yes. This one freezer olds approximately 36 units. Reporter graces core blood is being selected as we speak. Correct. Reporter in the frozen bag is the medical equivalent of gold graces stem core blood. It was harvested at the time of birth and stored here ever suns. The Lab Technician will prepare it for infusion. The process is precise, and will take more than 90 minutes. You are making sure you get every single blood cell out of the bag . Yes. Reporter how many cells are in the bag . In this bag, 253 million. Reporter thats a lot of cells, it sounds like. Its a lot, and its proficient young. After spinning and counting, its time for the critical faz of the procedure. About. Yes, the cells there. Well resuspend them in the liquid left, well pull a sarp out, do a cell count and see what is left. Pull a sample out, do a cell count and see what is left. Reporter so you are clicking every time we saw one. Yes. Cell. Thats a dead cell. Reporter the rest look perfectly healthy. 94 minutes after the process begins, graces blood is ready. Thank you. Its the greatest stem cells in this box, precious cargo. We are making our way into the hospital room where the infusion happens. Time really is of the essence now. When we come back, its go time for grace. The doctor infuses her with her core blood. But will it work . Do you have full knowledge of the future potential of this technology. I think we are at the tip of the iceberg. We are the techknow gowned because we are in a sterile environment. Coming up next, the future of cell therapy manufacturing. I think that al jazeera helps connect people in a way they havent been connected before. Its a new approach to journalism. This is an opportunity for americans to learn something. We need to know whats going on around the world. We need to know whats going on in our back yard and i think al jazeera does just that. The hallway to the duke Childrens Hospital is filled with hope. Inside this cooler is grace matthews core blood, believed to be critical to her recovering. We have been there all morning preparing for this moment. What happens next is ill give them a call and let them know the cells have arrived. Theyll come down and make a start. Thats it. Its just a waiting game now. Reporter now that her blood arrived from the lab, the wait is over. Its now just after 2 15pm. The team is ready. The the bag containing graces cord blood is in her doctors hands. Grace suffers hydroselfa lis where excess fluid squeezes and strangles her brain. Shell have the condition for life. The doctor hopes this will had hep her have normal cognitive ability. Will this repair the brain damage . Not that the cells replace other cells in the brain, but they give signals for other cells to come and repair the injury. [ crying ] we want to. Reporter how long does this part take . 5 to 7 minutes. Its dripping in from here. So. Vain. How important is the treatment for grace . Very important. We hope it helps with what happened invite roe. Reporter theres a lot of blood that comes from the core blood, but only part of it is what you need. When we collect the core blood, theres only one or 2 billion cells, but only a small fraction are the important cells. There are probably only 20 real stem cells in the whole election. We dont know what they look like. We know that they are in there, and when we give the unit back, theyll be contained in the other criminals. We dont know how to pull them out. Beside the 20 or so stem cells, there are a couple of hundred thousands. They have made the decision to be a heart muscle. Eyelid, blood or brain cell. When we infuse them back, they are the ones that go damaged organs and do the real job of helping. Grace is not alone. Across the country a little girl does what she loves swings on the swing and plays with her big sister and mum and dad. 6yearold grace rosewood can do a hand stand now. Well done. Reporter i wouldnt be able to do that. And give me a high five. All things she couldnt possibly do a year ago. We were headed in a very bad direction with what she was going to be able to do in her line. I felt like she was in a prison of her body. I felt she was trapped and traited. Reporter grace was ipp fused with infused with core blood at the duke hospital. Her treatment ended in 2013. Treatments . Its been the miracle of our lives. This wonderful thing that could have happened for a family and grace. For ava, she wanted to play with her sister and connect with her somehow. If the future of cord blood had been written, its written in a lack duke called the g. M. T lap. Getting this is not easy, and it requires a bit of a wardrobe change. Sterility is essential. What happens here . This is where we manufacture the cells we are making from score blood for treatment. Reporter just so i understand, you identified cells that are useful. You are trying to recreate those particular ones. Yes. Reporter you are recreating those particular ones because you know they can treat certain brain diseases. Yes. We have taken new cells and put them in an animal with certain problems. Reporter so with the case of grace, shes had several treatments now. But part of the core blood was saved. From that, are you able to needs. Well, for example, these are the cells she needs. We are at the point where we can recreate the criminals. If she needs a different cell we have to learn to create a different kind of sell. We are focussing on the brain. This is the right cell for her treatment. We recommend that we save back a little core blood to manufacture more cells that could be effective in treatment. Reporter back at the hospital, graces long day is just about over. Went . It went great, she did well. Reporter thank you so much. Youre welcome. Youre good to go. Thank you. Bye. Reporter long day. Very. Reporter you must be ready to go home and rest. Yes, go to sleep. Ready. How personally rewarding is Stem Cell Technology for you . For me its rewarding because i have seen it help people, which is the most reboarding thing a physician can do. Also it has enormous potential to do a lot more than we can do today, and i potentially believe this cell therapy and regeneralive med tin will be the next big advance in medicine and core blood may drive that. You know, i was so moved by doing this story, and not only moved, but amazed as well by the work of dr curts burg, because this tech analogy technology has boundless potential. I rang my sister and made sure shes banking her core blood she is expecting soon. Its such incredible technology. Its so exciting. Stem cells present a great and amazing potential and focus or research of the the idea that you have is undifferented cells that can become brain cells or heart cells. If we learn to interfere with different steps of the process we can address many issues. I never hard of this use of core blood. I imagine a lot of viewers maybe had not hard of it either. What would you tell expecting mothers about what they can do with core blood. I want to push the message bank your umbilical cord blood. Its as simple as that. Some people think its expensive. There is a cost involved if you want to bank it privately. Theres a zerocost option to bank it publicly. Whats the difference between the public and private banking. If you bank publicly your stem cells are available to etch. If you bank privately you can achieve your own. When you said you were it. Absolutely. Here is a twitter picture of the team, the cameraman, audio guys, producer, all in bunny suits they call them. You guys are looking good. If you want to see more images from the field, follow us on twitter. After the break its a favourite subject here is the techknow. Young scientists doing amazing thinks. Have . Speaking of people or cells that can be anything when they grow up, we have an inspiring young woman looking for a cure for malaria. Well check it out next. j [ music ] hey, guys, welcome back to techknow, im phil torres, here with crystal dilworth, and shini somara. You are about to introduce us to a 16yearold, and her work as the potential to save almost a million lives every year. It does. Treya was 13 when inspired by a family trip to cambodia. She learnt about malaria and the global problem the disease presents and that the treatments are not effective and she wanted to help do better. This is my first year, i have fourth place in chemistry and won the American Chemical Society award. It was a great experience. Theres a lot of kids interested in Research Like me. It made me feel kind of at home. Im 16. My project i submitted was working with different antimall aerial drugs to find a way to create new compounds to be used in effective treatment of malaria. Basically we are in an arms race against the malaria para site. As we evolve or treatments the para site changes and mewettates. This is causing problems in the medical world. My family has done a lot of international trips. A few years ago we went to vietnam and cambodia. I visited a village and saw a child suffering high fevers and chills. I did research and learnt that malaria was the cause of that childs suffering. At that moment i realised that malaria is not a problem that affects some small portion of the population, 300 to 400 million cases of malaria are diagnosed. I figured if we deal with a large problem there must be a solution effective for somebody. I decided to be that somebody. Based on experiences abroad i came up with a Research Idea and with the help of a doctor at the Research Institute i came up with research that i submitted to the science fair. It was great. I was in an environment full of people willing to help me out. I want to work in a laboratory in the future. Finding problems that im passionate about, if i work hard i can try to find a solution. I think this is an excellent example of how getting involved early in middle school and high school can contribute to some amazing advances in science. You dont have to have a University Degree to contribute. Im struck by the audacity of treya. Malaria boggled the minds of scientists, not just individual, but big corporations and she comes along at the age of 16 trying to find a better cure. Its fantastic. I think the audacity and curiosity was nurtured by the high school that she came out of. They have a Great Research programme where the High School Students act like researchers. They have projects, the advisor is the High School Science teacher, and he helps and leads them to resources to answer their own questions instead of standing and giving answers to questions. Do you guys see a little of traya in juf . I wish. I wish i was that driven at 16. I love it when we meet brilliant young lines, we see inventors, chemist, young doctors. Its cool to see what teenagers can come up with. The future of science is looking bright. Its looking good. Todays theme was inspiration, the inspiration of saving baby grace, and the devotion of dr curts berg, and the 16yearold girl pushing the boundaries of scenes. I absolutely loved it. If you guys want to see more, techknow. Dive deep into these stories and go behind the seconds at aljazeera. Com techknow. Follow our contributors on twitters, facebook, google and on tech know, imagine getting the chance to view the world. The brain is relearning how it sees again after decades in the dark, i couldnt get around on my own a miraculous bionic eye. Im seeing flashes great tech know, every saturday go where science meets humanity. This is some of the best driving ive every done, even though i cant see. Tech know. Were here in the vortex. Only on al jazeera america. This is al jazeera america. Im Thomas Drayton in new york. Lets get you caught up on stories this hour. A major breach in ceasefire in eastern ukraine. President obama makes a controversial move, delaying action on Immigration Reform until after november elections. Its lights out in the parts of the midwest as Severe Weather knocks out power to hundreds of thousands of homes. In tonights deeper