Our story began in 1985 when four-year-old Colleen Giblin died from an inoperable brain tumor. In the final stages of young Colleen’s battle with cancer, her parents, Paul and Vicki Giblin, decided they would work to spare other children and their family’s the similar anguish.
The best hope, the Giblins felt, lay in finding new and more effective treatments and cures for children with neurological diseases. With that goal in mind, and with the support of family, friends, local and international Unions, corporations including the 1986 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants who remain active today, they instituted a foundation. It was designed to promote research at the Colleen Giblin Research Laboratories at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading research hospitals.
The Foundation’s research efforts were led by the laboratories Founding Director Dr. Darryl C. De Vivo; Director of Pediatric Neurology Emeritus, Sidney Carter Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. De Vivo, an internationally renowned pediatric neurologist, has used the funds generated by Hope for Children Research Foundation to assemble a world class team of researchers with expertise in numerous sub-specialties. This includes Dr. Umrao Monani who recently became the inaugural Darryl C. De Vivo Professorship of Neurology and new Director of the Laboratory.
In 1999, the Foundation changed is status and make-up moving from private Trusteeship to a public Foundation maintaining its non profit 501 (c) 3 status. This move has broadened our donor base, and has allowed us to add large corporate and foundation donors to our loyal list of supporters.
Many supporters of the Foundation have reached out because their donation can help find better treatments and cures not just for a single disease but for a wide range of neurological and cancer-related conditions effecting children. This disorders over the past 35 years have included cancers of the brain, GLUT1-DS also known as De Vivo syndrome, spinal disorders, neuro-metabolic diseases, muscular dystrophies in particular Spinal Muscular Atrophy or SMA, nerve and brain damage due to injury, mitocondrial diseases, genetic disorders, seizure disorders, complications caused by AIDS in children or fetal exposure to chemical substances and neurological illness that present on the autism spectrum.
““No parent should ever be told by a doctor to take your child home, there is nothing more that can be done”.
Vicki Giblin, Founder ”
Where we are now
The Foundation has been supported by over 6,000 donors and volunteers, including community leaders, corporate and business organizations, and other caring citizens over the past 35 years.
It was the first Foundation in the country dedicated solely to supporting pediatric neurological research at a major academic medical center and 36 years later it remains one of the top children’s research laboratories.
The Foundation has raised and donated over $7 million dollars for medical research to help children.
It supports world renowned doctors and researchers working full-time on medical advances in neurological diseases in The Colleen Giblin Laboratories at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Established and has funded the Colleen Giblin Memorial Distinguished Lecture Series since 1986. Presenters have included: Dr. J. Michael Bishop, 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, 2009 Nobel Prize recipient in Physiology or Medicine, and Dr. Marcus Raichlem, the 2014 recipient of Kavli Prize (the neuro-science equivalent of the Nobel Prize).