A Tiny Spark

A film about how research into blood clots, the tiny things that cause strokes, could bring about big changes for people and medicine.
'A Tiny Spark' shows us how something small or seemingly insignificant can wield the power to alter the course of something else forever. A stroke itself is one moment that changes someone's life forever, just like the blood clot itself, although tiny, could mean so much to the world of stroke research. This documentary is about groundbreaking research being done by neuroscientist Dr. Karen Doyle at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices at NUI Galway. For the first time ever they are analysing thousands of stroke-causing blood clots collected from patients around the world. These little bundles of cells could carry a wealth of information, which could point to big improvement to people's lives. In the film we meet three incredibly brave stroke survivors who show us that it is sometimes the little things that people miss in life after a stroke, or the small victories during recovery that mean so much. Directed by Niamh Heery and produced by Caroline Kealy, with a mixture of dramatic first person accounts and beautiful animation sequences, A Tiny Spark is a film about science's ability to affect real change for human life.