Hans Keirstead

[1] In 2000, Keirstead left his position at the University of British Columbia, where his spinal cord research had been funded by Rick Hansen's charitable foundation.

During the debate he released a video of how he could restore mobility to paralyzed rats using his stem cell research.

The procedure was reproduced by three other labs by 2006, confirming that cells engineered to make myelin can help restore damaged areas of the spinal cord.

[2] Keirstead was Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Professor of Neurological Surgery at the School of Medicine of the University of California at Irvine for fifteen years, where he was awarded over $16 million in grants and founded the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center.

[6][5] In 2010, Geron Corporation began the world's first clinical trial of human embryonic stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries, based on the research of Keirstead's team at UC Irvine.

[8] In 2016, Keirstead founded AIVITA Biomedical, a private biotechnology company focused on cancer and developing a treatment that is proving to be the most effective to ever reach the final phase of clinical trials.

[16] Keirstead announced in June 2017 that he would run for Congress as a Democrat, challenging a seat held by Dana Rohrabacher in California's 48th congressional district.

[17] In a 2018 interview with ABILITY Magazine, Keirstead said "We don’t have anyone [in Washington] with a broad, deep understanding of the healthcare system, for example, not a one.