Mark Johnson: Murray Blackmore stood at the lectern and tried to take in the dark conference room, the men and women in wheelchairs waiting for him to wrest a little hope from science. But in his preoccupied state, the room was a blur and hope a struggle.The 39-year-old researcher took a deep breath.
An assistant professor at Marquette University, Blackmore had looked forward to addressing the symposium on spinal cord research in Boston. Work filled his daylight hours; interrupted his dreams at night. Often he would wake at 2 or 3 in the morning, pitched from sleep into the scientific puzzles of a broken spinal cord. Ideas in the midnight hours seldom bore fruit, but his mind churned through them just the same.
He felt a responsibility. The National Institutes of Health had awarded him a $1.6 million grant. He ran a lab outfitted with cutting edge equipment. He pursued the newest ideas in the field.
But in the fall of 2013, the researcher with the short, black hair and slim cyclist’s build was facing a year that would test the balance in his scientific life.
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