When he’s not playing gigs with his Dallas-based classic rock band or hanging with country music legend Willie Nelson, Eric Olson can be found rocking to a more scientific beat.

From his eighth floor lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center, the internationally recognized regenerative medicine specialist leads a team of about 40 scientists who use stem cells to investigate potential treatments for diseases of the heart and muscle caused by genetic mutations.

And his work is catching the attention of such notables as the nation’s 43rd president.

Olson is among the thought leaders chosen to speak at an invitation-only forum this week at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. He joins a lineup that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, musician Bono, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, philanthropist Priscilla Chan and many of Bush’s former cabinet members.

The forum’s goal is to highlight topics that the center says “will help reshape the coming decades.” That’s why regenerative medicine is a star of the show.

The field of regenerative medicine is described as a promising area of science that could one day revitalize worn-out body parts and transform the treatment of human disease.

The science involves creating living, functional tissues and organs inside a lab that can be implanted into the body to help repair or replace those that are damaged, diseased or aging.

"The future of medicine is genomics, the ability to correct DNA, personalized medicine," said Olson, chairman of molecular biology at UTSW. "To be able to identify even a single letter error in a person's DNA and fix it. That's about as personal as you can get."

1 / 4 2 / 4Olson displays a guitar in his lab area that was given to him by his friend Willie Nelson. (David Woo / Staff Photographer) 3 / 4Eric Olson will lead a panel discussion on regenerative medicine during the Forum on Leadership. (David Woo / Staff Photographer) 4 / 4Olson's lab assistant Efrain Sanchez works with protein muscle samples (center) as lab assistant Leonela Amoasii (left) and Olson look on.(David Woo / Staff Photographer)

But the use of stem cells hasn't always been a popular concept. Disagreement over the use of embryonic stem cells took up much of the initial discourse in the U.S. It rose to be a hot-button issue in 2001 when the Bush administration banned federal funding for research using newly created human embryonic stem cell lines. That elicited criticism from some in the research community.

"Some people are saying it’s the worst thing for humanity, some people are saying it’s the best thing for humanity,” said Bush Center president and chief executive Kenneth Hersh. “If we can bring leading experts from around the world to discuss it in a rational manner, then we’ve served our purpose."

The stem cells powering Olson’s research are not the controversial type. They are derived from the skin or blood of adults and reprogrammed to act like embryonic stem cells. The availability of those cells helped avoid “all the moral baggage,” Olson said.

That allowed him to not only create promising discoveries in treating genetic diseases but also to invest in new business opportunities.

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Most recently, the Olson Lab made headlines for developing a gene-editing technique that could one day help the one in 7,250 boys who develop Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The debilitating disorder, caused by a gene mutation, causes muscle weakness. It confines victims to life in a wheelchair and eventually takes their life. Until recently, boys with the condition did not live beyond their teens.

Many mothers don’t know they’re carriers of the mutated gene before it gets passed on to their sons; they often learn of the disorder only when their child begins to have difficulty walking as a toddler.

There are many approaches to treat the symptoms. Olson’s uses what he describes as “a molecular GPS device” to pinpoint one defective gene out of billions and he then tries to correct the gene before too much muscle loss occurs. “Once you fix the error, you fix the cause of the disease,” he explained.

Citing techniques created in his USTW lab, Olson went on to obtain $40 million in venture capital funding and last year co-founded a biotechnology firm based in Boston called Exonics. That company is pursuing more widespread use of the treatments for Duchenne and related conditions.

But it’s not just his scientific work that makes Olson a bit of a rock star locally.

"I'm an aspiring musician ... emphasis on aspiring," jokes the musical researcher, who plays guitar and harmonica in a band called called The Transactivators, named for the proteins that turn genes on and off. The band, made up of Olson's current and former colleagues, has performed around North Texas.

Olson also credits Willie Nelson with helping him connect the dots between his two passions.

The Grammy award-winning Texas native held a benefit concert in 2005 to raise money to support Olson’s research. The concert proceeds helped create the endowed Annie and Willie Nelson Professorship in Stem Cell Research that Olson continues to hold.

"Olson has been a member of our tribe ever since," Annie Nelson told The Dallas Morning News. "We are greatly interested in the progress he and his team are making and we're proud to be associated."

Over time, Olson says he’s developed an appreciation for how “just feeling the vibe” can work wonders, both musically and scientifically.

“To be a scientist, you have to be really creative,” he said, “think outside of the box, and try to look at the world in a way it hasn’t been looked at before.”

Read all of the stories about the Bush Center's Forum on Leadership.