The man who was Superman, actor Christopher Reeve, followed Swiss science closely. Paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident in 1995, he placed his hopes in Zurich-based neurobiologist Martin Schwab's research into nerve cell regeneration.

Schwab, a member of the SNSF Research Council, was the first scientist to be awarded the Christopher Reeve Research Medal in 1996. He has succeeded in regenerating nerve fibers in rats, and continued experimentation in this area has provided hope for humans with spinal injuries. Reeve hoped that the work of Schwab and other European and American neuroscientists would one day allow him to breathe on his own, move his arms, and possibly even walk again. Sadly, the actor died in 2004 without seeing his dreams fulfilled, although he lives on as an inspiration both to scientists and to other sufferers from spinal injuries.

Schwab's major breakthrough came in 1988. Until then, it was believed that spinal cord, once damaged, could never regrow because - unlike other parts of the body - it contains no 'nerve growth factors'.

However, Schwab discovered another reason why damage to nerve cells of this area had always been permanent: two proteins that inhibit the cord's regeneration.

Two years later, he succeeded in blocking these inhibiting proteins, thus allowing spinal cord in rats to regrow. Instead of using surgery to accomplish this, he gave the rats an antibody that acted against the proteins.

Four years later, he treated spinally injured rats with both the antibody and a growth-promoting chemical. By the time of Christopher Reeve's death, Schwab was optimistic that the first clinical trials on paraplegic patients were "relatively close."

Superman could leap tall buildings with a single bound; science moves in small steps but the end result is no less impressive.