A Detroiter with ties to Lime Springs is one of three finalists for the Entrepreneur of the Year award by Automation Alley, an organization in South Eastern Michigan.
He’s James Eliason and is my second cousin, but that’s not what got him nominated. Jim has put his PhD to work as a cancer researcher for the last 40 years. He’s now “retired”—and starting companies!
His most recent start-up works with stem cells. Properly motivated, these cells can become whatever kind of cell the body needs: heart cells, bone cells, etc. Of course this is not a simple business, or we’d be a lot further along with it than we currently are.
Jim’s new company, MitoStem, is working to provide that “motivation” I mentioned earlier. Now to be honest, I really don’t understand the process. But Jim does, that’s why he just won $100,000 in a recent award in the area.
Now a bit more about his Lime Springs connection. His grandmother, Antonia, and my grandfather Williams, Llewellyn, were siblings. She married “Uncle Simon” Eliason and lived in Montevideo, MN. Jim’s parents lived in, and Jim grew up in, Detroit, MI.
Jim spent two summers living with my parents, while I was away “protecting our country.” That was probably about 1959 and 1960, give or take a year or so. He slept in my bed, helped my Dad, got his haircut at McMaster’s Barber Shop (or was it Dale’s by then?) and so on.
I had the pleasure of visiting Jim, Maria, and their Antonia while they lived in Japan. Pat and I visited them when they lived in Lusanne, Switzerland. We learned that the wine from their vineyard in Hungary (Maria is from Hungary) was quite tasty indeed!
Now, after all that, would you please vote for Jim?? Just go here: http://www.automationalley.com/page?pageid=a0E60000005vZv5EAE,
then click on the “Click here to vote!” box. That’ll take you to a new page. James F. Eliason is listed in the second group, if I remember correctly.
Stem cells have the promise of curing lots of horrible diseases. I’m proud that a relative and one with connections to Lime Springs is a leading researcher in this area.
And by the way, Jim’s stem cells are not from embryos so there’s no reason not to vote for him!