Community

Open Houses

The First Friday of (most) months (September-June), we offer an Open House program. Tours of the laboratory are ongoing between 5-6:00pm. At 6:00, Dr. Wise Young presents a program on the latest in spinal cord injury research and clinical trials. We answer both group and individual questions as long as people have them. (Occasionally other commitments necessitate changes in the Open House schedule. Please check our Upcoming Events calendar or call 848.445.6573 if you have any questions.)

Summer Open House. In the summer we combine July and August and hold a special Open House on the Third Thursday of July. This program features guest speakers, scientific demonstrations, and vendor exhibits. Demonstrations begin at 4:45pm; the program starts at 6:05pm.

Traveling Open House Programs are held in locations where Drs. Young and Morton have speaking engagements or other programs. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to explore the possibility of hosting a program.

Information

We send monthly eBulletins and twice-a-year mailings to update the community on research and events. We provide presentations at international and national conferences and seminars, and are invited guest speakers at government and corporate programs including a recent Congressional Briefing. By special arrangement, we host tour groups for schools and civic organizations.

To ask questions or to be added to the mailing lists, please send your name, address, and email address to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

CareCure

The CareCure Website, CareCure.net, is the largest, most active site in the world for people with spinal cord injuries, their families, caretakers, and medical personnel. The highly-interactive site features the latest information on spinal cord injury research and clinical trials as well as forums on many important topics such as equipment including computer technology, housing and home design, sports and recreation, school, work, travel, and the highly regarded Care Forum where there is access to spinal cord injury nurses. There also are specialized forums for women, veterans, and other conditions including traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, and transverse myelitis. Depending on the nature of the question, it might be answered by researchers, clinicians, or people with spinal cord injuries and their family members.

Advocacy

We work with the government at the local, state, and federal levels. Our primary roles are providing education on the issues and implications of proposed policies and the initiation of new legislation.

We worked extensively with the New Jersey state legislature to pass a bill that designates $1.00 of every traffic ticket to spinal cord injury research and established the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research. We then organized Quest for the Cure, a state-by-state movement to pass similar legislation throughout the nation.

We collaborated with advocacy groups throughout the United States to pass legislation that made New Jersey the second state in the union to support all stem cell research and the first to provide funding. Supportive legislation created the Stem Cell Research Center which is adjacent to and contiguous with the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience.

We gathered families from all over the country to go to Washington, DC to meet with legislators to increase funding for spinal cord research and support stem cell research legislation. We recently worked with Congress to permit Expanded Compassionate Use for new, safe treatments where no other effective therapies exist.