FRIDAY, April 14, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- At first glance, it looked like many of the polo games that are played among the rich and famous in Florida during the winter months, but the purpose of this particular match pointed up an irony that few could miss.
On a grass field at the International Polo Club Palm Beach recently, horses thundered back and forth while players leaned over the animals' massive bodies at precipitous angles to swing their mallets at the ball. The steeds, exhausted by their runs, were changed after every seven-minute period. Not so the players, who continued, sweating and panting, until the match was over.
There were no accidents, and no falls that could injure or paralyze. That was fortunate, since the players wore only helmets as protective gear.
However, some of those watching off the field were not so lucky. Several were in wheelchairs, victims of various accidents that had left them with spinal cord injuries.
This celebrity match was, after all, an event sponsored by The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis, which raises money for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. When the evening was over, $600,000 had been collected for research.
The irony of riding horses to raise money in aid of people who have often been injured in equestrian and other sporting events was not lost on the big-name participants.
"There's not a polo player who doesn't have a friend who limps or is in a wheelchair or dead," said Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, fresh off the polo field after his match. "Spinal cord injury doesn't discriminate. It's in our best interest as a community to engage in community service."
And John Walsh of America's Most Wanted, still in pain from an equestrian accident five weeks earlier in which he broken two vertebrae and two ribs, said of that incident, "I was an inch away from a wheelchair. I was in a tournament, got launched and was knocked out for 10 minutes. This is my first time on a horse."
Dawn Jones, wife of Tommy Lee Jones, said the field was so slippery she slowed down her turns considerably.
Perhaps no one brought attention to the cause of spinal cord injury more than the late Christopher Reeve, who was thrown from a horse during a jumping event in 1995 and died in 2004, but the Miami Project has also attracted its share of headliners.
Singer Gloria Estefan -- who was temporarily paralyzed 16 years ago after a tour-bus accident -- recently donated $1 million to the cause on behalf of herself and her husband, Emilio. Tim Gannon, founder of Outback Steakhouse and one of the organizers of the polo event, said that every person he called responded.
The realities of life in a wheelchair and of scientific efforts to restore mobility seemed far removed from the rarified atmosphere of the fundraiser, with its fire jugglers and stilted harlequins moving through the throng of rich and glamorous benefactors.
But, in fact, the two worlds are symbiotic in an odd way, for it's the money that will one day enable the cure.
The world has seen several potential cures already that didn't pan out. Right now, scientists and patients are pinning their hopes on stem cell regeneration, specifically on Schwann cells. Schwann cells are a particular type of cell that grows to form the myelin sheath that protects nerves.
"Cellular implants are the future," said Dr. Barth A. Green, president and founder of the Miami Project. "We expect to start clinical trials in three to five years. It's been proved in rats, and now in primates."
In 2004, Miami Project investigators announced improvements in motor function in animals (rats and primates) with spinal cord injuries who had been treated with Schwann cell grafts. The center is hoping to start clinical trials within three years.
That's good news to Marc Buoniconti, who sustained a spinal cord injury during a college football game in 1985, and who was one of the event's hosts. His father, NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti, founded the Miami Project with Green after his son's injury.
When asked if he was optimistic about the prospects of stem cell research, he responded, "Of course it will work in humans, and I'll still be young."
More information
Visit the Miami Project for more on research into spinal cord injuries.
