To Find An Answer

[manouli]

TO FIND AN ANSWER

Wall St. firm founder gives $1M gift for paralysis cure
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 11/14/06
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEWARK — Tim Reynolds, co-founder of a thriving Wall Street trading firm, has a personal interest in research to repair spinal cord damage. Six years ago, he was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident.

While Reynolds has been able to continue working and enjoying his family, he said he often thinks of the difficulties faced by the 250,000 other Americans with damaged spinal cords.

"We spend all this money to keep people alive in dark apartments watching television or in assisted living centers," Reynolds, 40, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Monday's newspapers. "But not enough is being done to help cure their injuries."

To address that, the co-founder of Jane Street Capital donated $1 million to start a research laboratory at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.

The Tim Reynolds Family Spinal Cord Injury Center opened Monday and is to focus on people with long-term injuries.

"This is a solvable problem," said Reynolds, who believes he will walk again. He lives in Monmouth County with his family.

The center will be directed by Robert Heary, the neurosurgeon who reconstructed the crushed bones of Reynolds' spinal column. The lab will examine how to stabilize the spine with rods or screws, while other work will focus on regenerating nerves, which are needed to help people walk again.

Heary, director of the Spine Center of New Jersey at the New Jersey Medical School, said he would work with the New Jersey Institute of Technology on "scaffolding" made of synthetic tissue that would aid nerve growth.



http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...WS03/611140328

[Wise Young]

manouli, thanks very much for this post. This is good new. Wise.

[antiquity]

This is great news and I'm certainly not begrudging him but I wish it had been given to an existing lab where instead of being put towards building construction, it could have been used to bring an existing avenue of research into the human trials arena.

Interesting perspective.

"We spend all this money to keep people alive in dark apartments watching television or in assisted living centers," Reynolds, 40, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Monday's newspapers. "But not enough is being done to help cure their injuries."

[manouli]

HIS 'CHARMED LIFE' OFFERS AMMUNITION FOR A CURE

Published 11/13/2006 | Research Funding , November 2006 | Unrated

Paralyzed in car crash, millionaire puts up $1 million for more research so he and others may walk again


BY CAROL ANN CAMPBELL
Star-Ledger Staff
On the last day Tim Reynolds could walk, he stood outside a chic Manhattan restaurant, hailing a cab. It was a December evening, and he was celebrating the holidays with employees of the Wall Street firm he had co-founded the year before.

The driver of a car service spotted Reynolds sometime after 11 p.m. and offered to take him home to New Jersey. Exhausted, Reynolds got in, stretched out across the back seat of the Lincoln Town Car and closed his eyes.

He awakened as the car crashed into the median on the Pulaski Skyway -- and his life forever changed.

Reynolds said the driver had fallen asleep and lost control.

"I yelled, 'Wake up! You have to move the car!" Reynolds recalled. Then a sports car rear-ended them so violently glass spread like buckshot. Reynolds was pinned against a door, paralyzed, his ribs broken and his lungs bleeding.

Six years later, Reynolds, now 40, remains paralyzed from the waist down. During those years his fledgling trading firm, Jane Street Capital, has grown to 120 employees, with offices in London, Tokyo and Chicago.

Reynolds is now using his financial success to find a cure for spinal cord injury and has donated $1 million to establish a research laboratory at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.

The Tim Reynolds Family Spinal Cord Injury Center opens today and will be directed by Robert Heary, the neurosurgeon who rebuilt the crushed bones of Reynolds' spinal column at Newark's University Hospital shortly after the accident.

The lab opens at a time when a cure for spinal cord injury remains elusive, but tantalizing research invigorates the field. It will focus on the toughest cases: people with long-term injuries.

"This is a solvable problem," Reynolds said recently in Monmouth County, where 10-foot windows open to the Navesink River in the home he shares with his wife, Caroline, and their three children.

The former floor trader is a financial whiz who orchestrated crucial trade orders from the emergency room just hours after he was paralyzed. Colleagues say he has continued to spur growth of the company, and each workday, a friend drives him to the ferry that takes him through Raritan Bay to lower Manhattan.

"When Tim sees a goal, he goes after it," said Sandor Lehoczky, a managing director of Jane Street Capital. "Very soon you don't see the wheelchair."

Reynolds' donation gives Heary the opportunity to connect patient care with basic research. The money comes with no strings attached -- unlike most government and industry funding -- so the lab can jump quickly on promising leads. The doctor also is seeking grants from other sources.

Heary said the new facility will investigate methods to stabilize or realign the spinal column with rods or screws. Other research will focus on regenerating nerves, the critical step to help spinal-cord-injured people walk again.

"The goal is to get the messages from nerves above the injury to nerves below the site of injury," said Heary, who also directs the Spine Center of New Jersey at the New Jersey Medical School.

Experiments on rats will focus on chemicals that inhibit nerve Regeneration, and on efforts to block those inhibitors.

Heary also will collaborate with the New Jersey Institute of Technology to develop "scaffolding" to direct nerve growth, similar to how ivy grows on a trellis. The scaffolding will be made from synthetic tissue.

Another avenue is stem cells, both adult and controversial embryonic stem cells. Heary said researchers already can grow neural structures in the laboratory with stem cells. Both types of cells will be used to find ways to grow nerves either through, or around, the site of injury.

Heary wants the lab's work to focus on the chronically injured, since most research has gone toward the newly injured.

"There's been an air of skepticism with respect to these people, that they will ever regain movement or sensation," Heary said. "It's been an area of diminished effort. But we think there is room for improvement."

Experts say the field of spinal cord injury is ripe for breakthroughs.

"The era of regenerative medicine is with us now," said Michael Fehlings, a researcher at the University of Toronto who is testing a protein that strikes at a key factor blocking the regeneration of nerve fibers.

"A number of things are coming out of the pipeline. That was not the case three or four years ago," said Susan Howley, director of research at The Christopher Reeve Foundation in Short Hills.

It's the people themselves who keep Heary working for a cure. His patients include a 19-year-old man paralyzed while wrestling with a friend; a 35-year-old police officer assaulted in the line of duty; and a 39-year-old woman injured by a spinal infection following gall bladder surgery.

Reynolds, at his home one recent evening, said he thinks a lot about the 250,000 people in the nation with spinal cord injury. Few have his resources.

"We spend all this money to keep people alive in dark apartments watching television or in assisted living centers," Reynolds said. "But not enough is being done to help cure their injuries."

He disputes the notion that he had a charmed life before the accident.

"I have a charmed life," he says just before his wife carries over his daughter, Chloe, to kiss her father good-night. On weekends he rides a hand-bike in the park while 9-year-old Max pedals alongside. In summer, he swims in the family pool. The family travels frequently, and is planning an African safari.

"We didn't stop and say, 'This is horrible,'" said Caroline, his wife, who had given birth to their third child just three months before the accident. "We focused on what we had to do to get our lives back to normal."

Despite his remarkable adaptation after the accident, Reynolds wants to walk again. He often asks friends how it would feel to flap their arms and suddenly soar through the clouds.

"That would be thrilling, right?" he asked. "For me, it would be just as thrilling to walk through the woods -- to feel the grass under my feet, or to step out the front door and get the mail."

Reynolds said he believes he will walk someday. But he doubts any of his friends will ever fly.


Carol Ann Campbell covers medicine. She may be reached at ccampbell@starledger.com or (973) 392-4148.
http://www.thescizone.com/news/artic...-A-CURE/1.html

[kenf]

just what SCI needs , another building.

[Cherry]

Why would you guys say anything negative about this mans ideas. I came across an article on him earlier in the week and thought how similar his perspective on SCI was to mine and how refreshing an article like this was to read. He wants things done his way ie chronic research and he no doubt wants to be able to overview the work at hand. He also trusts his neurosurgeon to undertake the task. So just because this is a new venture it should it be abandoned right. After all, existing ventures have produced SO much thus far right.......Please.

Jesus. give him a chance. We have no idea about prospective collaborations or anything. Would you rather he donate somewhere like MP so they can splurge on yet more glossy newsletters telling their donators how 'close' they are to the cure.

The mentality and criticism of anything cure related on these boards at times really makes me sick and I think I'll refrain from coming here for a while. I have better things to do than read this bitter BS plus my charity is really picking up speed. To those of you i'm in touch with, lets keep it that way, away from here.

OH and If you donated any money for Stevens trip to DC I will PM you regarding it. I'm out

[Schmeky]

From reading the article I don't get the impression Reynolds is trying to reinvent the wheel. As the article stated, there are a lot of avenues to pursue that have already been discovered.

Since this is privately funded, Reynolds can be agressive, not being hamstringed by others.

We need to get him on this site and be POSITIVE about his efforts. He's trying, we should be supportive.

[paolocipolla]

Originally Posted by Cherrylips

Why would you guys say anything negative about this mans ideas. I came across an article on him earlier in the week and thought how similar his perspective on SCI was to mine and how refreshing an article like this was to read. He wants things done his way ie chronic research and he no doubt wants to be able to overview the work at hand. He also trusts his neurosurgeon to undertake the task. So just because this is a new venture it should it be abandoned right. After all, existing ventures have produced SO much thus far right.......Please.

Jesus. give him a chance. We have no idea about prospective collaborations or anything. Would you rather he donate somewhere like MP so they can splurge on yet more glossy newsletters telling their donators how 'close' they are to the cure.

The mentality and criticism of anything cure related on these boards at times really makes me sick and I think I'll refrain from coming here for a while. I have better things to do than read this bitter BS plus my charity is really picking up speed. To those of you i'm in touch with, lets keep it that way, away from here.

OH and If you donated any money for Stevens trip to DC I will PM you regarding it. I'm out

Jen,

I belive you are right with what you say here, but please if you have time keep coming on cc as I belive your contribution is very important like you just did.

Ciao

Paolo

[Eric.S]

Originally Posted by Cherrylips

Why would you guys say anything negative about this mans ideas. I came across an article on him earlier in the week and thought how similar his perspective on SCI was to mine and how refreshing an article like this was to read. He wants things done his way ie chronic research and he no doubt wants to be able to overview the work at hand. He also trusts his neurosurgeon to undertake the task. So just because this is a new venture it should it be abandoned right. After all, existing ventures have produced SO much thus far right.......Please.

Jesus. give him a chance. We have no idea about prospective collaborations or anything. Would you rather he donate somewhere like MP so they can splurge on yet more glossy newsletters telling their donators how 'close' they are to the cure.

The mentality and criticism of anything cure related on these boards at times really makes me sick and I think I'll refrain from coming here for a while. I have better things to do than read this bitter BS plus my charity is really picking up speed. To those of you i'm in touch with, lets keep it that way, away from here.

OH and If you donated any money for Stevens trip to DC I will PM you regarding it. I'm out

Your right...

Seems like people tend to scoff at anything that isn't apart of what they or the general sci community doesnt consider "reputable". But in the end ur right, the highly esteemed members of the sci community haven't gotten us out of these chairs as of yet so really who are they or anyone to scoff at anybody.

[manouli]

Originally Posted by Schmeky

From reading the article I don't get the impression Reynolds is trying to reinvent the wheel. As the article stated, there are a lot of avenues to pursue that have already been discovered.

Since this is privately funded, Reynolds can be agressive, not being hamstringed by others.

We need to get him on this site and be POSITIVE about his efforts. He's trying, we should be supportive.

Schmeky, I agree with you, and it's a splender idea to get him here, he means well, and he wants to help us too. I don't know how to write him to thank him. manouli