Mills Lane

Remember Mills Lane - the Boxing Referee - that was - in REAL Life a Judge in Reno? He suffered a stroke at his Reno home in 2002. Is scheduled to leave the United States next week to undergo stem cell injections at a Ukrainian hospital to help him recover. He started to receive injections of adult stem cells taken from his own bone marrow in August.

 

 “Mills is going back for a third time to the Ukraine, where he is part of clinical research with the bone marrow-type stem cell research, and he feels grateful to be part of the beginning of this very promising medical breakthrough,” his wife said. “There has been slight improvement so far and I am very optimistic. We should see results in three weeks.”

 

Since then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first clinical trial in the United States to test bone marrow stem cell therapy for severe heart failure. That trial, being conducted by the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, was approved earlier this year.

 

But by then, Kaye Lane already had taken her husband twice to the hospital in Kharkov, Ukraine, where doctors injected so-called “adult” or stromal stem cells first into his spine and then into his brain.

 

Stromal stem cells differ from fetal stem cells, which are the center of a controversy that emerged again last week when former first lady Nancy Reagan advocated their use for research, pitting her against federal policy and the beliefs of President Bush.

 

The doctors and staff at the hospital in Kharkov have refused payment for the treatment, she said.

 

Lane also refereed international boxing matches that included Michael Tyson’s infamous 1997 ear-biting bout with Evander Holyfield.

 

Colorful and often uncompromising, Lane signaled the start of each bout he refereed with his signature phrase, “Let’s get it on,” an expression that also summarized his attitude toward life.