It’s 5 a.m. and Eva Feldman is heading to her office to devour a hearty breakfast of scientific articles. Over the next two hours she’ll sample a bit of cell biology, molecular biology and, her favorite, neurodegenerative diseases.

By 8 a.m. Sean Morrison and Max Wicha arrive, and all three begin the tedious task of responding to the hundreds of e-mails they’ve received through the night. As the morning proceeds they visit their respective laboratories, which house not only their life’s work but also “their people,” without whom there would be no work at all.

The three, all top scientists at the University, make up some of the principle players in the most innovative research in the world. Trying to solve more than simple scientific questions, they are on a mission to cure the most torturous and fatal diseases that strike mankind.

Wicha runs the University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. Morrison directs the University’s Center for Stem Cell Biology Research as well as the International Society for Stem Cell Research. When they’re not on campus they can most always be found in Washington, D.C., Europe or Asia, presenting their research at conferences or meeting with international colleagues — Morrison traveled 135,000 miles least year alone.

But Feldman’s day, it seems, can be a bit more hectic.

On Tuesday she can be found in the Neurology Clinic. Wednesday she’s in the Motor Neuron Disease-ALS Clinic treating patients. Other afternoons she’s directing the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute.

For Morrison, Wicha and Feldman, time is their enemy. While they’re barely afforded enough of it to breath, the real challenge is working against the clock to develop treatments that may ease the pain and save the lives of millions of people.

The answer, they believe, lies in stem cells — microscopic units present in all multi-cellular species that can regenerate and morph into different cells, tissues and organs. While scientists believe stem cells have the potential to treat dozens of diseases and conditions like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and spinal cord injuries, no one yet knows their full potential.

And as researchers try to find out, the clock keeps ticking.

“It takes years of your life to answer a scientific question,” Morrison says. “So if I’m going to spend years of my life trying to answer a question, I really want people to care what the answer is.”

Feldman doesn’t mind the life commitment that eats up her days, hours and seconds.

“I don’t really have a ‘job,’ " she said. “I have a passion. And if you want to call it a job, it’s the best job in the world.”

Close to a cure

In a laboratory on the fifth floor of the Biomedical Science Research Building, 30 students, Ph.D.s and lifelong researchers work ferociously to find a treatment for a ruthless disease — one that creeps through the body, weakening tissues so that victims are, quite literally, unable to move a muscle. Even the seemingly most invincible athletes don’t stand a chance.

Meet amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — more commonly known as ALS — or Lou Gerhig’s disease, named after the legendary New York Yankees baseball player who suddenly came down with the disease at the height of his career.

ALS damages nerve cells and motor neurons in the spinal cord that control muscle movement. The disease tends to strike people in their 30s and 40s, and once a patient is diagnosed it may take only three to five years for the disease to take over the body and kill its host. It’s a painful process — as most victims lose the ability to walk, talk and even breath.

Feldman, who has seen thousands of ALS patients die from the currently untreatable disease, is on a medical mission to find a cure.

“I would say on a near-weekly basis one of my patients will pass away from this disease,” she said.