Jennifer Matthews: While many people dread working out, Julian Smith cherishes every step he takes.
Julian Smith: It's just really hard for me to do anything.
Jennifer Matthews: Hard because Smith suffers from scleroderma. His body is turning on itself -- attacking connective tissue throughout the skin and organs, causing pain, inflammation, and hardened skin. It could lead to failure of his lungs, kidneys and other organs.
Julian Smith: A bad day is typically just not being able to get out of bed, -- just no energy.
Jennifer Matthews: Duke University Oncologist Keith Sullivan is hoping Julian won't have any more bad days after an adult stem cell transplant.
Dr. Keith Sullivan: Our goal is to; in fact, reset the immune system back to normal so the autoimmune disease may be stabilized.
Jennifer Matthews: Doctors create a new immune system. They take out stem cells, erase the disease, and put the clean stem cells back in the patient. Because it's their own cells, there's no risk for rejection. Dr. Sullivan says it not only stops the disease, it reverses the symptoms.
Dr. Keith Sullivan: The first thing that many notice is that the intense pain they had in their skin starts abating.
Jennifer Matthews: To create a new immune system, doctors must first destroy the old one and rebuild it, putting patients at risk for infection.
Dr. Keith Sullivan: When the immune system is reborn in this way, the blood counts go down for a period of several weeks and then they recover.
Jennifer Matthews: Julian is already feeling the effects.
Julian Smith: I just have bit more energy now.
Jennifer Matthews: And now he hopes his disease will be stopped and extracts.
This is Jennifer Matthews: reporting.
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