Roman Reed was playing his first college football game in 1994 when an otherwise ordinary tackle left him with a crushed C6 vertebra: Roman was paralyzed. He was told he would never walk again; he would never be able to use his hands; he would never bench press 400 pounds again; he would never have children of his own.
Five years later, the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act of 1999 passed in the state of California. This legislation mobilized $17 million in state funding and attracted $85 million in federal spending to find a cure for paralysis due to spinal cord injury.
Roman has a long standing commitment to patient advocacy. He has spent 20 years advocating and currently serves as President of the Roman Reed Foundation, Board Member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, and Board Member of the World Stem Cell Summit. He has been named Stem Cell Person of the Year and was twice awarded California Assembly Person of the Year. Dr. Paul Knoepfler of University of California Davis has called Roman, “arguably the top stem cell patient advocate ever.”
Roman is a 2008 graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. He then went on to Stanford University, where he helped start the Stanford Partnership: Spinal Cord Injury Repair and serve as Executive Director. Today, Roman lives in California and has three children, Roman Jr., Jason, and Katherine.