Dear Friends,

It’s great to be back for another Great Sports Legends Dinner.  This year marks our 36th year of gathering in support of The Buoniconti Fund for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

The Miami Project has thrived over the past year with steady research advancements and novel clinical programs, all of which continue to change people’s lives.

Our Scientific Director, Dr. W. Dalton Dietrich, Co-Founder, Dr. Barth A. Green and our neuroscience research team showed up with incredible determination and worked tirelessly and steadily despite the challenges we all experienced during these pandemic days. The Buoniconti Fund team came together stronger than ever to raise funds in the new world of virtual communication.

The Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at UHealth/Jackson Memorial that successfully opened in 2020 is providing, each day, world-class care to our patients at this state-of-the-art rehab center. The Buoniconti Fund Board of Directors was constantly present each day and continued their on-going support of our mission.

What an amazing group that didn’t miss a beat!

As always, I want to thank everyone for their continued support and belief in our mission including the Great Sports Legends Dinner Chairman, Mark Dalton, The Buoniconti Fund Board of Directors, The Mack family, the Great Sports Legends, Honorees, our wonderful donors, volunteers, and Dinner attendees. I want to thank the University of Miami President, Dr. Julio Frenk and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Dean, Dr. Henri R. Ford.

With a grateful heart and great pride on all the outstanding work, we look ahead and are excited to ring in another succesful year.  My father’s promise to me that became my promise to all, fuels me each day and together, with our excellent team, we will continue our quest until a cure is found!

Marc A. Buoniconti, President

The Buoniconti Fund and The Miami Project

To our dear friends and supporters of The Buoniconti Fund and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, it seems like yesterday that I was shaking hands with Nick Buoniconti and joining forces to create The Miami Project. It was 36 years ago, shortly after his son Marc was paralyzed on the football field. Our focus was that the concept of “paralysis was forever” needed to be disproven. On that day, we committed to change medical and scientific history. Not by a prayer or dreams or hoping alone, but by creating good evidence-based research that could be translated into the clinics and operating rooms and ultimately become part of the practice of medicine globally. We have seen this happen at The Miami Project.

Changing the practice of medicine or surgery is a goal that few physicians or surgeons have ever achieved. Today, I am proud to claim this distinction, not as an individual, but as part of the prestigious Miami Project to Cure Paralysis team of scientists, clinicians, technicians, and graduate students who have worked together every day, 24/7 for the last 36 years to create a better life for people with catastrophic injuries and diseases of the nervous system. Yes, spinal cord injury is still our focus, but as part of that focus, it is natural that once you repair the spinal cord, you can also repair brain and peripheral nerve tissues because they are all anatomically and functionally connected.

Improving function, improving quality of life, improving opportunities, diminishing dependence and amplifying each individual’s independence has become our mantra!

Today, we are not just excited, but supercharged with enthusiasm about our new collaborators from the Departments of Engineering and Rehabilitation Medicine, as well as our long-term teammates from numerous other basic and clinical sciences.

It’s truly a new era.

Is Covid-19 a challenge? Yes.

Is global warming and our deteriorating environment a challenge? Yes.

Is social unrest and racial injustice a challenge? Yes.

However, despite all these challenges and difficulties that we all are facing in 2021, we have continued to work together, totally focused and committed to our mission.

Our short-term goal; to improve the quality of life for people with neurological injuries and diseases today.

Our long-term goal; to create treatments and cures for those disabling conditions.

Finally, we must always remember that it “takes a village.”

Thank you for your support of tonight’s celebration of historic scientific achievements and of the amazing loyalty and spirituality of our Buoniconti Fund, The Miami Project, University of Miami and Jackson Health System leadership and our world class research teams at the Lois Pope LIFE Center and at the new outstanding  Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center!

Sincerely and gratefully,

Barth

Barth A. Green, M.D., Co-Founder
The Miami Project

The Miami Project family would like to first thank all our friends, volunteers, and the spinal cord injury (SCI) community for their unwavering support for our multidisciplinary programs as we continue to advance our research initiatives. This year has presented challenges for all of us that had to be overcome to ensure our community’s safety while remaining true to our research and education objectives. We know that COVID-19 has had serious consequences on many of our friends and loved ones. We send our best wishes while looking forward to a future of exciting discoveries, successful translational programs, and meaningful clinical advances.

Over the last year, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has modified many of our education, outreach and research clinical programs to ensure their continued success. Our investigators have initiated several remote programs for our SCI community allowing many individuals to stay connected with researchers and colleagues. Successful home programs now include exercise and rehabilitation activities as well as innovative wellness and mindfulness initiatives. These well attended programs have allowed research subjects to participate in new clinical initiatives while adhering to safety guidelines important during these challenging times. With the appreciated vulnerability of our SCI community to infections, new initiatives are safeguarding our research programs and ensuring the safety of volunteers and investigators. Information on these active remote programs and how people can register can be found on the Miami Project website.

An important goal of our research strategic plan is the continued recruitment of outstanding researchers to introduce new questions and technologies that compliment current programs and advance our science. Over the last several months we have successfully recruited new faculty to lead our education and outreach program and to introduce novel neural engineering devices to activate neural circuits to promote function and improve quality of life. We are actively recruiting a new clinical investigator with expertise in SCI neuromodulation that can be combined with ongoing rehabilitation and regenerative approaches including our FDA-regulated cellular therapies. We are excited about these recruits and future contributions leading to important collaborations and innovative programs critical for our future success.

In the area of discovery and translational research, significant advances in drug discovery have been realized including new NIH funding to support an innovative pharmacological approach for promoting successful axonal regeneration after SCI. Another important program being advanced with industry assistance is a humanized antibody treatment that targets neuroinflammation after brain and spinal cord injury. New findings regarding the pathophysiology of brain and SCI are also helping us design better studies to target injury and reparative mechanisms using molecular methods, gene therapies and novel engineering approaches like tissue engineering.

Our ultimate vision is to develop successful treatments and therapies that can be administered at different phases of the injury process that complement each other to maximize protective and reparative mechanisms. Important research programs also continue to target quality of life issues that impact our SCI community, including neuropathic pain, cardiovascular and autonomic dysfunction, muscle spasticity, and fertility. To advance these initiatives, we are strengthening alliances with industry partners to evaluate new minimally invasive electrical and magnetic neuromodulation technologies including brain-computer interface work to promote upper and lower limb function.

This is an exciting time for The Miami Project as we have now relocated our clinical researchers into the new Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. This state-of-the-art facility is already providing endless opportunities for the advancement of new strategies to improve recovery and long-term health for our disability community and caregivers. The Lynn Center is offering the unique opportunity for our clinical investigators to work together with colleagues in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physical Therapy, and Jackson Memorial Hospital. These new alliances are providing a seamless treatment pipeline from the emergency and intensive care units to rehabilitation programs to improve the long-term health and well-being of our constituents. The new Nick Buoniconti Translational Research initiative is supporting an established clinical infrastructure to ensure the success and continuation of this forward-thinking project. An overreaching goal of The Miami Project is to conduct translational research enabling future clinical advancements for neurological disorders including spinal cord and traumatic brain injury, concussion, stroke and neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease affecting millions of victims worldwide. Our research communities in the Lois Pope LIFE Center and the Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center are working tirelessly to advance new scientific discoveries. We sincerely appreciate your critical support for the development and initiation of multidisciplinary programs to promote recovery and the quality of life of all individuals living with paralysis.

Barth A. Green, M.D.
Co-Founder

W. Dalton Dietrich, III, Ph.D.
Scientific Director

Allan D. Levi, M.D., Ph.D.
Clinical Director