NeoRestoration Foundation

NeoRestoration Foundation

The NeoRestoration Foundation (NRF) meets a critical need for research, access and recovery in spinal cord injury treatment. Every year, around the world, between 250,000 to 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury (SCI). There are about 12,000 new SCIs every year, and the majority of them (82 percent) involve males between the ages of 16-30. These injuries result from motor vehicle accidents (36 percent), violence (28.9 percent) or falls (21.2 percent). A spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal cord that causes changes in its function, either temporary or permanent. These changes translate into loss of muscle function, sensation, or autonomic function in parts of the body served by the spinal cord below the level of the lesion.

In early 2000, John Wood McDonald III, MD PhD and his team were the first to report that oligodendrocytes do regenerate when stimulated by exercise. Hence he launched new and innovative protocols known as Restorative Therapy Integration (RTI) in treating patients with spinal cord injury. This lead the way for Dr. McDonald recognizing that the micro repair of the spinal cord to restore and recover function if volitional exercise was employed. This discovery gave birth for him to develop Activity Based Restorative Therapy (ABRT).

In 2004, Dr. McDonald built and became the Executive Director of the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury ICSCI at Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. It is here that he and his team he brought with him from St. Louis; he further expanded and improved ABRT and pushed for the expansion and improvements in technology and more research to move medical science forward. ABRT is now a therapeutic protocol used worldwide from those who have sustained a spinal cord injury and has been the driving force to expand and rewrite the protocols of treatment of people experiencing other movement disorders. The cross collaboration of world-renowned scientists from different research institutions across the world, lead to further innovations in technology, advances in stem cell treatment and improved pharmacological treatment and a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms to repair and restore muscle mass, movement and neuronal cell regeneration enabling patients to regain independence. Their plan integrates the most advanced knowledge in neuroscience, epigenetics, nanotechnology, molecular biology, electrophysiology, and functional brain imaging. According to Dr. McDonald, today, it is improvements in technology that will be the single most significant factor in moving medical science forward.

NeoRestoration Foundation was founded in 2017 by Ellizzette Duvall McDonald inspired by her brilliant husband, John W. McDonald III MD PhD, who pioneered the research and recovery in spinal cord injury patients through his stem cell research that lead to multiple other discoveries, patents and protocols in the field of neuroscience and neurology. Today his historical groundbreaking work and legacy continues among his collaborators. NRF is headquartered in New York City, with offices in St. Louis. 100% of all donations go directly to research.