Have you ever heard of the story of Lorenzo’s oil? It’s a story about the unconditional love in an Italo-American family and the strong will to fight a terrible illness, together. Lorenzo Odone was born in 1978 in Washington, and was diagnosed at a very young age with Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare disease caused by the damage of the myelin, which surrounds the nerves, due to the buildup of fatty acids.

It damages the nervous system, interfering with motor and cerebral activity, and it is degenerative, which means that it progressively gets worse, and eventually shortly leads you to death, as it had been predicted to happen within two years for Lorenzo as well. But that’s when his parents stepped in, and decided not give up on their son’s condition.

Augusto Odone was born in Rome and had had work experience as an economist, so he had worked nowhere near the medical field, and neither had his wife Michaela Odone, born in New York; yet they put effort and time in their hopes of saving their son: years of research, study and contact with doctors from all over the world.

Then one day, despite not being scientists, they managed to participate to a meeting where a doctor presented his discovery of an oil that was able to prevent the accumulation from happening, therefore stopping the illness from worsening although not providing an effective cure for it.

Although the times for production and testing of the oil would have been quite long, the Odone family caught the opportunity and reached out to many chemists, hoping to find someone who’d be willing to initiate the production process, until they finally found Don Suddaby.

They started the treatment that was able to stop the disease from progressing, so to stop the damage to the myelin, by incorporating the oil in Lorenzo’s diet. The oil alone, though, isn’t able of improving the conditions of an ALD; so to actually slowly fix some of the damages already occured, it is required to be submitted to other additional treatments.

Alongside with the oil, which was named after Lorenzo, in 1989 the Odone’s founded the Myelin project, a non-profit organization which aims to provide financial support to the families of patients of ALD and fund researches about the disease.

Unfortunately, Lorenzo Odone died in 2008, having lived 30 years of his life despite his tragic illness, and 8 years after losing his mom to cancer. His dad continued the fundraising for the Myelin Project until the very end, and received an honory doctorate for it; he then moved to Acqui Terme back in his Italy and died in 2013.

Based on their moving story, in 1992 George Miller co-wrote and directed a movie entitled “Lorenzo’s Oil”, which goes through their most significant moments in their battle trying to find a cure against ADL, and which was nominated twice at the 65^th Academy Awards.

Us humans have yet to broaden our knowledge in the scientific field, however this is the perfect example of the dedication some people are able to display in times of necessity, fueled by the love in a family.