Williston State Alumnus Dr. Kristi Anseth was honored in October as one of the “Brilliant 10″ top young scientists in the nation by Popular Science magazine.

Anseth leads a research team at the University of Colorado that developed a degradable polymer that stimulates the growth of new human tissues to replace those lost by injuries and disease.

Technicians remove healthy tissue from a patient and blend the cells with a gel that stimulates healing. That substance is reinserted to the damaged area of the body causing cells to regenerate. Weeks later the hydrogel dissolves, leaving fresh, healthy cartilage behind.

In the future Anseth’s colleagues hope the process will regenerate defective heart valves, mend shattered bones, produce insulin for diabetics and grow healthy neurons to replace diseased brain tissue.

But one of the most promising applications is to help repair injured knee cartilage.

“I played basketball and volleyball in school and had my fair share of knee injuries,” said Anseth on the website of the world’s largest science and technology magazine.

Helen Overbo, who was Anseth’s advisor and coach at Williston State, is proud of Kristi and recalls a humorous story and important community college stepping stone in her young career.

“Kristi was a very good student, and played volleyball and basketball, but on the social side of things, she was very, very shy and needed to build communication skills. I was her advisor, and speech was a requirement for her to graduate (though it’s not required now).

“She absolutely would not take it. She said, ‘I’m not going to graduate from here; I’ll just transfer.’

“The last semester of her sophomore year I said, ‘You’ve got to take speech.’ She said ‘No, I can’t,’ and I said, ‘You have to.’ I said, ‘What if you’re the graduation speaker or something?’ Then she thought about it and said, ‘OK I’ll try it, but I can drop it.’ She started it, did very well and, sure enough, she was our graduation speaker, and did a very good job.”

No doubt Kristi, who hopes to design hydrogels for killing cancer and has won nearly two dozen awards for her ground-breaking research, will be giving innumerable speeches in the future.

Congratulations, Kristi. We wish you the best of success for the sake of the entire human race!