On January 7, 1986, 15-year-old Jeffrey Modell passed away from severe combined immunodeficiency (often known as SCID or “bubble boy disease”), a rare genetic condition in which a person’s immune system is severely impaired. If detected early enough, however, it can be cured with a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully, today, every newborn in America is tested for this disease. But that wasn’t always the case. For nearly a decade, the Modell family fought and failed to have a test for SCID added to the standard newborn screening. Then they met Dr. John Routes, a pediatric allergist and immunologist at Children’s Wisconsin, and everything changed.

Read more in this article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.