![Leslie Gordon and family](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ts_gordonfamily.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
Leslie Gordon (right, with son Sam and husband Scott Berns) began studying progeria after her son’s diagnosis.
Progeria Research Foundation
When a child is diagnosed with a mysterious disease, the lives of everyone in the family change. But when Leslie Gordon’s son Sam was diagnosed with a rare premature aging disease, the lives of dozens of families changed. As a pediatrician and medical researcher at Brown University, Gordon set out to learn what caused her son’s condition and how to treat it.
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Sam looked fine when he was born, but he didn’t grow the way other babies do. His primary teeth didn’t come in on time, and he seemed a bit stiff. Doctors couldn’t find anything in particular wrong with him, but Gordon knew something was amiss. “I’m his mother,” she thought. “I know there’s something wrong here.”