For the last two years, he has shown dramatic video footage of healed rats to scientific gatherings and during campaign events to promote California's $3 billion bond measure to fund stem cell work, which passed in November.

Keirstead and his colleagues are continuing to experiment with rats to ensure the injected cells do what they're supposed to without any side effects. "You don't want toenails growing in the brain," he said.

"We upset a lot of people," said Dr. Gabriel Nistor, who was the first researcher to join Keirstead's lab five years ago. "No one believed us at first."

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