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Sabrina Cohen is the Executive Director and President of the foundation. She graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in Communications, double majoring in Advertising and Psychology. Sabrina also holds a post-graduate degree in Copywriting from the Miami Ad School. She is a C5 Quadriplegic, as the result of a spinal cord injury from a car accident in 1992. In 2006, she established the Sabrina Cohen Foundation for Stem Cell Research to raise funds for research because she believes stem cell research will lead to the greatest medical advances of our time. Sabrina is a Motivational Speaker & Spokesperson continuously speaking in schools, universities and community centers. She has spoken at scientific conferences around the country, including the "World Stem Cell Summit" at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, Stanford University, Baylor College of Medicine at the University of Texas, and at the United Nations. Sabrina also created a progressive line of t-shirts to promote the cause www.freethestemcells.com
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| Dr. Andrew Akerman is Vice President of the foundation. He is a physician specializing in Neuroradiology who graduated Magna Cum Laude from New York University with a double major in Biology and Political Science. At the age of 16, Dr. Akerman sustained a C6 spinal cord injury, which rendered him quadriplegic. The only quadriplegic in the country attending medical school at the time, he completed his medical education at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. This was followed by a 5-year residency in Diagnostic Radiology at North Shore University Hospital, and then a sub-specialty fellowship in Neuroradiology at the University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Medical Centre. Dr. Akerman is now in private practice, and has always embodied the importance of giving back through teaching, lectures, seminars, and volunteer work. |
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Juan Babani is the Treasurer of the foundation. He’s the Vice President and Sr. Business Lending Officer of Colonial Bank. Juan has over 13 years of valuable banking experience, including originating and processing loans in the South Florida market. He has worked at various South Florida financial institutions including CNLBank, Beach Bank, SouthTrust Bank and Nations Bank. He also has an active Real Estate License and owns, operates and maintains several investment properties throughout South Florida.
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CinthYa Poreh is Director of Marketing / Business Planning for the foundation. She has a BSc in Architecture & Town Planning and an MSc in Architecture from the Technion Institute in Israel, receiving an Academic Excellence Award and Dean Scholarship for 3 consecutive years. Cinthya brings 20-years of expertise in building, developing and leading companies throughout the different stages of the business. She’s done vast volunteer work in the marketing and the strategic planning for The Jewish Community Day School, a Jewish Education non-profit organization in Boston. She’s also been involved in a variety of research work for institutions such as the Technion Institute in Israel, the UNFV in Peru, the Ministry of Energy and the Center of Urban and Regional Studies in Israel. Cinthya is currently the President and Senior Partner of Kadami Group LLC.
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Kathryn Sullivanis Director of Public Outreach and Sponsorship for the foundation. She graduated from Sacramento State University and went on to study at Santa Clara University and The Pacific School of Psychology in California. She spent her career as a professional recuriter with companies such as Korn/Ferry International, Cisco Systems, Seagate and as Director of Human Resources at Marvell Semiconductor. Kate has over 25 years of experience as a fund raiser for the March of Dimes and Lucille Packard Childrens Hospital in Palo Alto, California.
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SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD:
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Joshua Hare, m.d. is Chief of the Cardiovascular Division at the University of Miami and Director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute in Miami. Dr. Hare received his B.A. at University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. at Johns Hopkins University. He completed fellowships at Johns Hopkins University and Brigham and Women's Hopital in Boston. He was a Research Fellow at Harvard University and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.
One of Hare's projects involved harvesting adult stem, multiplying them and then injecting them into a damaged heart, working on the theory that they would develop into new heart tissue that could heal the damage. And he now has the FDA's OK to experiment with new ways to introduce stem cells.
Ole Isacson, M.D. is Professor of Neurology (Neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Center for Neuroregeneration Research/Neuroregeneration Laboratories at McLean Hospital and an NIH Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence grant awardee. Dr. Isacson is also a co-chair of Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair and Principal Faculty of Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
He received his Medical Bachelor (1984) and Doctor of Medicine (a research doctoral degree in Medical Neurobiology, 1987) from the University of Lund in Sweden. In 1989, after a 2 year postdoctoral position at Cambridge University, England, Dr. Isacson was recruited to Harvard as an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and there established a small independent research laboratory for his work on neuroregeneration. Over the last decade his original laboratory has grown to an internationally recognized academic research center for Parkinson's disease and related disorders, funded by the NIH, DOD and private foundations.
Hans S. Keirstead, Ph. D is an Associate Professor at the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and Co-Director of the Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California at Irvine. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His PhD thesis concerned his invention of a novel method for regenerating damaged spinal cords, which formed the basis of several worldwide patents and formation of a company. His work constituted the first demonstration of functional regeneration of the injured adult spinal cord. In 2000, Dr. Keirstead joined the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at the University of California at Irvine, founded by the late Christopher Reeve and philanthropist Joan Irvine, investigating the cellular biology and treatment of spinal cord trauma, multiple sclerosis and other diseases of the nervous system. In order to bring his treatments to clinical trials, he has founded or partnered with biotechnology companies to fund and conduct pre-clinical and clinical development. In 2004, Dr. Keirstead led his team of researchers at UC Irvine to successfully develop a human embryonic stem cell derived treatment for acute spinal cord injuries in rats. That treatment was approved in January 2009 by the FDA for clinical trials in humans with acute spinal cord injuries, which will be carried out by Geron Corporation. It marks the first human embryonic stem cell trial ever approved in the U.S.
Camillo ricordi, M.D.serves as Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute, whose research objective is to develop a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. He is known for pioneering islet isolation techniques that are now used worldwide and for performing the first successful series of human islet allografts. Acknowledged by his peers as one of the world's leading scientists in cell transplantation, Dr. Ricordi is well-known for inventing the machine that made it possible to isolate large numbers of insulin-producing cells from the human pancreas and for performing the first series of clinical islet transplants that reversed diabetes after implantation of donor purified islets into the liver of recipients with diabetes. Dr. Ricordi has also developed highly innovative strategies in an attempt to transplant cells and organs without the continuous requirement for anti-rejection drugs. He coordinated the University of Miami Stem Cell, Cellular Therapies and Tissue Engineering Initiative, which resulted in the establishment of the W. H. Coulter Center for Translational Research at the University of Miami. |
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HONORARY BOARD:
CONGRESSWOMAN DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ
Senator DAN GELBER
fl. state representative RICHARD L. STEINBERG
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ADVISORY BOARD:
bernie siegel
Executive Director / Founder
Genetics Policy Institute
Alan t. brown
President
Alan T. Brown Foundation
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david evensky
Executive Vice President
Evensky & Katz Wealth Management
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