Salem State College Series

Robin Cook and Christopher Reeve
Dialogue on Stem-Cell Research

8:00 p.m.
Tuesday
May 4, 2004

When actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed after being thrown from his horse in 1995, he lost the ability to do the simplest things we all take for granted. What he retained, however, was his sobriquet as Superman. Despite his life-altering accident, the person who played the "Man of Steel" in so many movies has moved forward, showing the world that Superman is not a piece of fiction, but is embodied in the good works of Mr. Reeve.

A graduate of Cornell University, Reeve continued to study theater at Juilliard and made his Broadway debut in A Matter of Gravity opposite Katharine Hepburn. His credits include Deathtrap, The Bostonians and the Oscar-nominated The Remains of the Day (film) and The Marriage of Figaro, Summer and Smoke and Love Letters (stage). Superman and its sequels, however, were perhaps his greatest commercial successes.

Life began anew for Reeve after his accident, and with his typical drive he turned his talent and celebrity to new causes: raising awareness of both stem cell research and spinal cord injuries. In 1996, Reeve and his wife created the Christopher Reeve Foundation, later to be merged with the American Paralysis Foundation to become the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

Best-selling novelist and Columbia University graduate Dr. Robin Cook is no stranger to biotechnology and medical research. With the publication of the Boston ophthalmologist's first book, the bestseller Coma in 1977, he almost single-handedly created an entire new mystery genre: the medical thriller.

Since then, Dr. Cook has sold over 100 million books worldwide -evidence that readers are intensely interested in medically oriented issues. He has explored issues such as organ donation, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, research funding, and organ transplantation. In Vector, he explored the possibility of an anthrax attack in New York City, a prescient omen of things to come in 2001. In 2001's Shock and his most recent release, Seizure, Cook explores the uproar over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Of Shock, he says, "I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue..." "Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues."

Dr. Cook, currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, continues to be amazed at the enormous potential of evolving stem cell research. "This is the most promising aspect of medical research that has ever come along. It's going to make even the discovery of antibiotics pale in comparison," he predicts. Who better, then, to explore the world of medicine's future and the future of stem cell research with Christopher Reeve?