'A new platform for funding collaborative research': A Q&A with Margaret Goldberg, President and CEO, Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

The newly appointed president and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, Maggie Goldberg, has spent twenty years with the foundation, providing leadership, management, and vision to help establish the only national paralysis-focused organization centered around a dual mission — "Today’s Care. Tomorrow’s Cure®." In addition, by overseeing the foundation’s National Paralysis Resource Center, Goldberg brought to the role her personal experience of suffering a C2 vertebrae injury at age 16 — an injury from which she fully recovered, but which catalyzed her work on behalf of the paralysis community. Most recently, she served as the chief operating officer of the foundation and before that was the senior vice president of marketing and communications. In her new role as president and CEO, she plans to launch a modern approach to the foundation’s scientific endeavors and establish new collaborative partnerships to bring greater awareness and attention to the needs of the paralysis community.

PND asked Goldberg about her plans to launch a modern approach to the foundation’s scientific endeavors, the development and delivery of treatments that move the field closer to cures for spinal cord injury, new partnerships she’d like to align the foundation with, the current status of stem cell research and other therapies, and leading the National Paralysis Resource Center.

Philanthropy News Digest: You’ve indicated that you plan to launch a modern approach to the foundation’s scientific endeavors as CEO. Could you share a little about those plans and how you envision implementing them?

Maggie Goldberg: Since 1982, the Reeve Foundation has awarded over $140 million to a vast network of researchers worldwide. When we began, spinal cord research was in its infancy and was considered the “graveyard of neurobiology.” Many were given no hope of recovery because the prevailing dogma was that the spinal cord was incapable of repair or regeneration once damaged. However, we know much more now, and — finally — innovative therapies and interventions are on the horizon.

To that end, one of my highest priorities is launching a modern approach to the foundation’s scientific endeavors with a new platform for funding collaborative research from the bench to the bedside, designed to address critical roadblocks along the scientific continuum and accelerate progress toward meaningful therapeutics.

Read the full Q&A with Maggie Goldberg.