Meeting to discuss policy

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.