Force Field of Dreams

Doug Whitney isn’t living up to his potential. And that’s a good thing. “Before dawn on a March morning, Doug Whitney walked into a medical center 2,000 miles from home, about to transform from a mild-mannered, bespectacled retiree into a superhuman research subject. First, a doctor inserted a needle into his back to extract cerebral spinal fluid — ‘liquid gold,’ a research nurse called it for the valuable biological information it contains. Then, the nurse took a sample of his skin cells. After that came an injection of a radioactive tracer followed by a brain scan requiring him to lie still for 30 minutes with a thermoplastic mask over his face. Then, another tracer injection and another brain scan.” Doug Whitney has been getting poked and prodded for fourteen years. It’s not because of something he’s got. It’s because of something he’s somehow avoided. Whitney is part of the largest extended family to carry an Alzheimer’s-causing mutation. Basically, Whitney should have already died after suffering through years of one the world’s most devastating diseases. “‘Nobody in history had ever dodged that bullet,’ Mr. Whitney said. But somehow, he has done just that.” If researchers can figure out how Doug Whitney has escaped what seemed to be his certain medical fate, it might offer important clues to helping others treat or prevent the scourge of Alzheimer’s. NYT (Gift Article): He Was Expected to Get Alzheimer’s 25 Years Ago. Why Hasn’t He?