Research For Life is committed to providing compassionate services to donor families throughout Arizona and Southern California. Our whole body donor program brings donor specimens together with educators and researchers for the purpose of advancing medicine that improves or extends the quality life for people all over the world.
Over the past decade we have been a leader in our commitment to support responsible legislation that:
We also continually lobby to maintain the right of all persons to choose whole body donation. Whole body donors help to save lives and improve the quality of life for current and future generations.
As a leading anatomical whole-body tissue bank in the United States we are accredited by the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB).
Donors can make a difference and Research For Life can help facilitate their gift. We work with many cutting-edge organizations that are seeking to bring innovative medical devices or drug therapies to society that will improve and or extend the quality of life for many people around the world.
Research For Life is a no-cost program providing the services of transportation and cremation at no charge to the donor or the donor’s family.
We, at Research For Life, have been granted a very special privilege: to be allowed to contribute our donors’ bodies to the future of science. Our first priority is and shall always be to treat them with the utmost dignity and respect.
Video Content: Quarterly public tour hosted by Garland Shreves, CEO, Research For Life
Laurie and Garland Shreves founded Research For Life in 2009. They both have a deep background in the funeral industry – spanning several decades. They believed that donor families deserved a higher level of care and service. The original lab was in Chandler, Arizona and then moved to Phoenix in 2012, near Sky Harbor airport. This move allowed for a larger building with space for training doctors and paramedics. These new facilities allowed Research For Life to offer better opportunities for learning with technology and state-of-the art recovery facilities.
Our organization identified the growing need in Southern California to support those individuals who wished to become whole body donors. So, in 2011, the Temecula, California office was opened to the public.
As we grew, we recognized the importance of accreditation, licensure, and inspection within our industry. We made the commitment to consistently meet the highest possible standards for whole body donor programs to better serve our donors, their families, and our end users. Research For Life is 1 of only 7 accredited whole body donor organizations in the United States.
Since we opened our doors in 2009, we have served more than 10,000 families in Arizona and California. More families are choosing Research For Life for whole body donation over any other organization and we are currently registering hundreds of future donors each month.
From our earliest beginnings, we have believed that transparency and public outreach are key to helping people understand the facts about whole body donation and the benefits it provides to society. Research For Life hosts quarterly public tours of our facility, participates in public speaking tours, and offers in-service presentations for medical professionals. At the start we offered a guaranteed donor program because placing donors ahead of profits is the right thing to do.
Currently, Research For Life currently has just under 50 employees and provides anatomical specimens for medical education and research organizations worldwide.
