Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to be featured on TLC’s American Chopper

Episode to unveil Orange County Choppers’ first-ever wheelchair-accessible motorcycle

SHORT HILLS, N.J., Dec. 29 /PRNewswire/ — The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation announced today that Paul Teutul Sr. and the crew from Orange County Choppers (OCC) have built a custom wheelchair-accessible motorcycle specifically to raise funds for the Reeve Foundation. A first of its kind, this trike bike allows someone living with paraplegia the opportunity to ride a motorcycle without having to transfer from their wheelchair.

The American Chopper episode featuring the Reeve Foundation/Life Rolls On bike is scheduled to air on TLC on Thursday, January 7 at 9PM ET/PT. Continue Reading »

American Chopper for Reeve Foundation Sneak Peek

Paul Sr. and the crew from Orange County Choppers (OCC) has built a motorcycle for the Reeve Foundation. Continue Reading »

Michael-Ryan Pattison Foundation

A Cure is Coming is a foundation to build awareness of, and philanthropic support for, those with spinal cord injuries that enable access to a range of specialized therapies focused on improving overall quality of life.

Redefining ‘Cured’

A spinal-cord-injury activist puts a new priority on living with—not fighting—paralysis.

Ever since 1988, wheelchairs have figured into Alan T. Brown’s dreams. That was the year his neck was crushed by an ocean wave at a Club Med in Martinique. He was 20 years old, young and single and free, and in one second went from a vibrant college student to a quadriplegic, with no movement below his chest. The dreams began almost instantly, usually with the wheelchair off to one side, Brown standing nearby. “In the beginning, I was convinced I would walk again—1,000 percent,” says Brown, now 42, who runs his own public-relations company in Hollywood, Fla. “My old mottos were ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’ and ‘Never say never.’ I did think there was going to be a cure.” Continue Reading »

WillWalk to raise funds for human stem cell trials for people with SCI

WillWalk, an Austin based non-profit organization has committed itself to be at the forefront of ending Paralysis. WillWalk will raise $3 million to help fund the first non-controversial human stem cell trials for people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI).

The money raised will fund the first of this kind of research in the U.S. The stem cells being used are a non-controversial adult stem cell from umbilical cord blood. These studies will be a landmark achievement in medicine and will be the first time stem cells are used on humans to treat chronic SCI. Continue Reading »

Stem-Cell Breakthrough

It’s a chilling thought. In the coming year, 130,000 people worldwide will suffer spinal-cord injuries—in a car crash, perhaps, or a fall. More than 90 percent of them will endure at least partial paralysis. There is no cure. But after a decade of hype and controversy over research on embryonic stem cells—cells that could, among other things, potentially repair injured spinal cords—the world’s first clinical trial is about to begin. As early as this month, the first of 10 newly injured Americans, paralyzed from the waist down, will become participants in a study to assess the safety of a conservative, low-dose treatment. If all goes well, researchers will have taken a promising step toward a goal that once would have been considered a miracle—to help the lame walk.

The trial signals a new energy permeating the field of stem-cell research. Continue Reading »

Spinal Cord Injury Research Focus of Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation Grant

Support from the Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation will allow a Medical College of Wisconsin faculty member to research whether neurally modified cells derived from human bone marrow can be used to repair damage caused during spinal cord injury. If effective, this approach could someday be used to help paralysis patients regain movement.

Arshak A. Alexanian, Ph.D., V.M.D., associate professor of neurosurgery, is principal investigator for the one-year, $40,000 grant. He is studying the ability of cells that have been derived from human bone marrow and modified to behave as nerve cells to promote the functional recovery of injured spinal cords. His research is conducted at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. Continue Reading »

Spinal Cord Injuries – Is there Hope?

Turning tragic events into opportunities for others

There are many flashing lights in our lives – when we see “green” we speed right on through life not even aware of what the next day or move could bring. As we cruise through the green light not realizing that sometimes others who have the red light do not halt and come to a standstill – they are in a hurry to “beat” the light and then our lives collide.

There are flashing yellow lights which warn – and instruct – they mean “caution” or “look out” – proceed with care. And then that ever nuisance, the red light, which makes us have to stop dead in our tracks when we want to be moving forward. Continue Reading »

How you can help our most severely wounded warriors

Today’s Care. Tomorrow’s Cure.

Half of what we do here is about the care! And as many of you know, care costs a lot.

Our friends at the Wounded Warrior Project are asking Congress to pass legislation to establish a national program to train and provide ongoing supports and compensation to family caregivers of our most severely wounded warriors. Continue Reading »

Hope is a river

David Estrada lost the use of his legs, but not his will. Now, at Spaulding hospital, he and other paraplegics are learning to row, strengthening body and mind as they wait for a cure.

From his office in the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Andrew Taylor’s views sweep across the Charles River, where generations of rowers have raced. So maybe it makes sense that the pursuit of science would bring the researcher from his desk to the water’s edge, in what he recently described as “a beautiful convergence.’’

Taylor is amid a grand experiment. In his third-floor laboratory, he is replicating the workouts of avid oarsmen who pound away on indoor rowing machines inside boathouses along the river. But in Taylor’s lab, there’s a key difference: His rowers are paraplegics. Continue Reading »