SCF founder Sabrina Cohen recognized as a WebMD 2009 Health Hero

Sabrina Cohen, founder of The Sabrina Cohen Foundation for Stem Cell Research (SCF), was just recognized as a WebMD 2009 Health Hero. She will receive national media attention with a full-page article about her personal story of triumph and courage, and shares the spotlight with celebrity movie-star, Scarlett Johansson and other Health Heroes in the November/December issue.

Being a WebMD Health Hero means being faced with difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible challenges. A Health Hero not only surmounts them but also uses them as motivation to help others. And that’s exactly what Sabrina Cohen is doing with her 501 c3 nonprofit, The Sabrina Cohen Foundation for Stem Cell Research, an advocacy organization that’s dedicated to fighting diseases by funding advanced stem cell research in the United States since 2006. But why stem cell research? It has the potential to impact and treat a host of 70 diseases including lupus, Alzheimer’s, spinal cord injuries, deafness, leukemia, diabetes and more.

“As a patient advocate fighting for medical breakthroughs, this $2,500 donation from WebMD means so much more than just a dollar figure. This recognition means hope, possibility and belief in the science of stem cell research. The money will be earmarked towards further education and direct funding of the leading research in the U.S.,” said Cohen

The Sabrina Cohen Foundation for Stem Cell Research recently bestowed its first grant of $25,000 to University of California, Irvine, researcher Hans Keirstead who has studied restoring mobility in paralyzed rats and whose current research on spinal cord injuries yielded the world’s first-ever embryonic stem cell treatment to be tested in humans.

Cohen’s not new to advocacy. After being in a car accident in 1992, she became a quadriplegic at the young age of 14 years old. “I didn’t want to be known as the girl in the wheelchair,” she recalls. But she did what she had to do. She graduated from high school, went on to college and eventually opened her own advertising agency recruiting South Florida clients. In 2004, her life would change course forever. After hearing a presentation on stem cell research, she joined forces with the Genetics Policy Institute, which eventually led her to founding her own nonprofit organization.

The business community is also taking notice of Cohen. She just received the “Amethyst Arts & Culture Non Profit Award” from The Diamond Palm Award for Excellence in Business and Business Leader Media just named her a “2009 Mover & Shaker,” an award that honors up-and-coming local business leaders.