40 years after being paralyzed making a tackle in a college football game – a tackle he credits for saving his life — Marc Buoniconti will mark the unprecedented milestone, and his 59th birthday, at the 40th Annual Great Sports Legends Dinner, Monday, September 29th at the New York Hilton. The dinner, to benefit The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis, will honor 10 athletes who have both achieved the pinnacle of their respective sports as Hall of Famers, World Champions, Olympic Gold Medalists, and Sports Icons, and who are coming together for one night in an unprecedented effort to raise awareness and millions of dollars for research and treatment of paralysis and other neurological diseases and disorders.

About The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis

In 1985, Barth A. Green, M.D., world-renowned neurosurgeon, and Nick Buoniconti, NFL Hall of Fame linebacker, founded The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis after Nick’s son, Marc, sustained a spinal cord injury during a college football game. The Miami Project, a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, is a leading global research center. The Miami Project is conducting cutting-edge discovery, translational and clinical investigations in traumatic spinal cord and brain injury, peripheral nerve injury and neurological diseases and disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis and stroke.

The Miami Project’s international team under the leadership of Drs. Barth Green, W. Dalton Dietrich, and Allan Levi and has grown to more than 175 scientists, researchers, clinicians and support staff dedicated to improving the quality of life of those suffering from spinal cord and brain injuries and other neurological diseases and disorders. Miami Project researchers are conducting clinical studies and trials in spinal cord injury, including testing neuroprotective strategies, cellular therapies using Schwann cell and stem cells and advanced rehabilitation and neuromodulation approaches including the use of brain machine interface technologies. Additionally, their scientists are researching drug discovery for axonal regeneration and immune modulation, neuropathic pain, male fertility and cardiovascular disorders.

Committed to finding a cure for paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury and to seeing millions worldwide walk again, the Buoniconti family established The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis in 1992. The Buoniconti Fund is a non-profit organization whose mission is to raise funds and awareness to help The Miami Project achieve its primary focus; to repair and restore function to the injured and diseased nervous system, thereby improving the quality of life to patients throughout the world.