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The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) today announced a gift of $10 million from the Regenstein Foundation.
The Foundation directed the gift to the capital campaign for the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, RIC’s state-of-the-art research hospital, set to open in early 2017. The $550 million, 1.2-million-square-foot facility will be the first-ever “translational” research hospital in which clinicians, scientists, innovators and technologists will work together in the same space, applying (or “translating”) research real time.
It is an honor to support the Center for Bionic Medicine, one of RIC’s most extraordinary research programs, in its quest to improve function and quality of life for people through research, technology and innovation.
Susan Regenstein
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The $10 million contribution, which served as a lead gift for RIC’s $350 million capital campaign, will underwrite the Center for Bionic Medicine, the largest prosthetic research enterprise in the world. The Center includes the team that created the world’s first bionic arm by developing the Targeted Muscle Reinnervation technique. Now, RIC scientists have pioneered the latest wave of bionic prostheses, which collect signals from the body and are entirely thought-controlled.
“For three generations, the Regenstein Foundation has been instrumental in RIC’s growth, and we are immeasurably grateful for their ongoing support,” said Joanne C. Smith, M.D., RIC president and CEO. “Their investments, made over the course of 50 years, have had an extraordinary impact on RIC and have been returned many times over in the discoveries they have nurtured and in the untold number of patients who have thrived as a result.”
RIC’s history with the Regenstein family began in 1964, just a decade after the hospital’s founding, when Helen Regenstein joined the hospital’s Board of Directors. In 1971, Helen and Joseph Regenstein committed the first million-dollar gift to the campaign for RIC’s current flagship hospital. Today, Helen and Joseph's granddaughter, Susan, serves on RIC's Foundation Board, a position she has held since 2009. In addition to capital investments, the Regensteins’ support has also funded research programs and established the Regenstein Residency Program Endowment.
“Our family’s history is meaningfully interwoven with RIC’s, and we are thrilled to contribute to the hospital’s next, dynamic era,” said Susan Regenstein. “It is an honor to support the Center for Bionic Medicine, one of RIC’s most extraordinary research programs, in its quest to improve function and quality of life for people through research, technology and innovation.”
RIC’s $350 million capital campaign is expected to close in December 2017 and, currently, all new campaign contributions will be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis up to $8.5 million total. Gifts can be made directly online or by calling 312.238.6013
