2004: With many months of recovery and reconstruction work needed to repair the devastation left by Hurricane Charley on the southwest coast of Florida, Hadassah launches a special appeal to raise assistance funds. Researchers at HMO show that human embryonic stem cells can improve the functioning of a laboratory rat with Parkinson's disease. The research team is headed by Prof. Benjamin Reubinoff, director of Hadassah's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell research at the Goldyne Savad Institute of Gene Therapy and the Department of Gynecology, and Prof. Tamir Ben-Hur, senior physician in Hadassah's department of Neurology, the Agnes Ginges Center for Human Neurogenetics. The research was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and stroke (NINDS), a component of the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the United States.