Roman Reed, a native of Fremont, California, 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 four hundred 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 California and led to $17 million in state funds raised, as well as attracting around $85 million in federal dollars, to find a cure for paralysis due to spinal cord injury.

Roman has a long standing commitment to patient advocacy. He has spent twenty years advocating, currently serves as President of the Roman Reed Foundation, Board Member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, Board Member of the World Stem Cell Summit, and has been named Stem Cell Person of the Year award winner, among others. 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 as Executive Director. Roman is presently founder and CEO of investment firm StemRemedium.