During the last ten years, most of the science related news has had one clear and absolute protagonist: stem cells. The possible medical applications these cells foretell have generated a current of enthusiasm throughout the medical and scientific community which has transcended into society, causing expectations which are getting closer to becoming true and turning them into mankind’s greatest hope for the treatment of diseases which today are incurable.

With this approach as background, The Fountain of Life suggests an educational, scientific and, above all, human trip around investigations undertaken in Spain about stem cells and their current medical applications in the treatment of several diseases such as Beta Thalassemia Major, a severe congenital anaemia that affects haemoglobin production and with which Andrés Mariscal Puertas was born in 2002.

The only cure for this disease, with a life expectancy of 35 years, is the transplant of adult stem cells specialized in blood renewal, these are found in bone marrow, peripheral blood and in umbilical cord blood.

But until a donor was found it was necessary for Andrés to visit the hospital every fifteen days to get a blood transfusion. After a search of over four years, a donor was never found.

The Fountain of Life rebuilds his story and his family’s, the first in Spain to be authorized by the National Assisted Reproduction Commission to submit to Preimplantation Genetic Diagnostics in the benefit of others. This technique was approved in 2006 within the reform of the Human Assisted Reproduction Act, which allows genetic selection of embryos to cure a sick brother through the transplant of adult stem cells found in his umbilical cord blood.

Thanks to this new possibility, the Mariscal Puertas family had another child, who was born healthy and completely compatible with Andrés who afterwards got a stem cell transplant from his brother’s umbilical cord.

Present in almost all our body, adult stem cells are the only ones used until to now in medical tests with humans and some of the most prestigious hospitals of our country are in the lead of these cell therapies. One of the most successful was undergone in La Paz Hospital in Madrid by the Cell Therapy Unit that Dr. Damián García Olmo is in charge of, and which will soon bring us the first drug made out of fat adult stem cells

With the help of Dr. García Olmo and his team, and José Antonio Perea’s surgery – one of the patients to try this new therapy – The Fountain of Life follows up with this medical test which uses adult stem cells in complex cicatrisation processes such as fistula treatments.

The ethical debate about the genetic selection of embryos, the investigations about embryo stem cells, cell therapy, the important work undergone by Spanish scientist, the latest developments and their different applications or the donation of umbilical cord blood are some of the aspects related to this new medical reality this documentary looks at to offer a complete analysis of regenerative medicine and stem cell investigations, with its eyes on its encouraging present and its unimaginable future.