In 1974 doctors at Texas Children's Hospital caring for David Vetter considered how they might help him experience life beyond the stationary isolator bubbles that protected him from the germs to which he was so susceptible. They needed engineers who understood life support systems and synthetic fabrics, who could "dock" the suit with the isolator, and who allowed no margin of error. Luckily, those engineers worked down the road at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
On October 21, 1983, David Vetter received a bone marrow transplant from his older sister Katherine. Unfortunately, Katherine's marrow was not an exact match for David's.
David Phillip Vetter, the "Bubble Boy," left a deep mark on a world he visited only briefly. David's life contributed to scientific understandings and treatments of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), the disease that kept him in the bubble.
