Your Support of the RIRC Propels Vital Research Projects
Although we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in terms of advancing science over the two decades since the RIRC was founded, we still have a long way to go to improve quality of life for people living with spinal cord injury. Discoveries by RIRC scientists have formed the basis for clinical trials including the Geron-Asterias trial for stem cells, but it is clear that the therapy being tested will only be part of the answer, and will only apply to early post-injury setting. We need new approaches and innovative technologies to continue to advance therapies, especially for the chronic injury setting.
RIRC receives grants from NIH and foundations along with some limited funding from the university, but these are restricted to specific projects and/or activities such as education. Your generous unrestricted gifts are urgently needed to propel our science in ways that are impossible through grants and university funding, for example:
- To be used as seed money that can be rapidly deployed to test novel concepts and innovative approaches. Promising preliminary data generated with unrestricted funding is the necessary ingredient for grant funding from NIH.
- To support activities to launch collaborations including scientific workshops and visiting scientists whose direct collaboration brings new innovation. Scientists are often criticized for not collaborating, but collaborations are only launched when scientists are brought together. This is the primary goal of scientific workshops and visits by scientists from other institutions.
- To allow us to rapidly deploy new technologies.
- To provide fellowships for talented trainees who are not eligible for NIH fellowships. NIH fellowships are restricted to United States citizens, but science is a global enterprise and an important road to progress is to engage talented young scientists from other countries in the SCI research enterprise.
Your generous gifts can help change the future for people living with spinal cord injury.
