For author Don C Reed, father of a paralyzed son, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is the greatest medical advance since penicillin.

REVOLUTIONARY THERAPIES is Reed’s third book about the $3 billion stem cell program.

Voted into law in November 2004, CIRM is now running out of money.

Should its funding be renewed? Thereby hangs a tale, or rather several dozen of them, for each of the book’s 71 short chapters is framed by a yarn or vignette.

The factual background is accurate, vetted by the scientists, but Reed’s goal is clearly both entertainment and education.

A favorite example is a little girl named Evie, imprisoned in a plastic bubble: her body’s immune system did not work, and she would die outside. She joined a CIRM clinical trial Imagine how Evie’s parents felt — when she got well.

Some stories are comical, like “How Stem Cell Research Saved My Car”; others surprising, like the comparison between politics and the giant crocodile Gustave; others are tragic or inspiring: but all point to this:

More than 100 million Americans suffer chronic disease, causing mountains of medical debt — and the only way to reduce that expense ($3 trillion last year) — is cure.

Readership: Stem cell researchers; patient advocates, students, scientists in biomed field, parents of children with disabilities, soldiers with injuries; Parkinson’s, diabetes and spinal cord injury survivors, fundraisers for medical causes; for anyone with a chronic disease.