Through our latest grant round, we are investing £1.5 million across the UK to research a range of sight loss conditions, including diabetic eye disease and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The Fight for Sight Project Grant awards a maximum of £250,000 for up to three years, supporting the development of research ideas that could lead to breakthrough in the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of vision conditions.
Read on for details of Fight for Sight’s 2024/25 Project Grants.
Scientific research is at the heart of our vision to Save Sight. Change Lives.
Here's how we’ll do that.
Investigating tissue damage in diabetic retinopathy
Diabetic eye disease is the leading cause of blindness amongst the working age population, with only about 50% of patients responding to current treatments.
Vision loss in diabetic retinal disease occurs because of bad blood vessel function, which in turn triggers an increase in the number of blood vessels in an attempt to recover normal blood supply.
Professor Balda’s team are investigating whether they can ‘block’ a particular biological process that leads to tissue damage in diabetic retinal disease. This could then be developed into a treatment that would aim to prevent vision loss in those with diabetic eye disease.
Who: Professor Maria Balda
Where: UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Amount: £250,000
Understanding treatment responses in wet AMD
Professor Chen is working on better understanding a type of AMD called ‘wet’ AMD.
Wet AMD is a rapidly progressing type of AMD, caused by the growth of abnormal blood vessels in the retina (the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye). These blood vessels can leak, leading to scarring and loss of central vision.
Currently, nearly a third of patients do not respond to existing treatments, but we don’t know why. Previous research suggests it could be related to the size of the blood vessels, so Professor Chen’s team are investigating this idea further using cells from AMD patients. If we can understand why particular treatments don’t work, then we can also understand how to develop new treatments.
Who: Professor Mei Chen
Where: Queen’s University Belfast
Amount: £250,000
Developing a gene therapy for aniridia
Dr Hamill’s team is developing a treatment for aniridia, a rare genetic disorder associated with damage to the cornea (the clear layer at the front of the eye).
Patients with aniridia typically experience deterioration of this layer in adolescence or early adulthood. It leads to pain, inflammation and vision loss. Current treatments for aniridia don’t target the underlying cause, so Dr Hamill is developing a gene therapy that could target the cause of the disease to hopefully slow or stop its progression.
In the longer term, the team hopes to develop an eye drop formulation that patients can use to prevent their disease from progressing, removing the need for regular painful, invasive, and ultimately ineffective surgical intervention.
Who: Dr Kevin Hamill
Where: University of Liverpool
Amount: 249,641
Unpacking genetic risk factors for keratoconus
Professor Hardcastle’s team is investigating the genetic risk factors for keratoconus, a condition which causes the outermost layer of the eye (the cornea) to change shape.
It affects at least 26,000 people in the UK.
Currently it’s difficult to diagnose keratoconus before a patient experiences vision loss. By understanding the genetic risk factors, we could identify patients who could benefit from early treatments, as well as provide knowledge for the future development of new treatments.
Who: Professor Alison Hardcastle
Where: UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Amount: 249,960
Read how new glasses could improve the quality of life for people living with keratoconus
Improving a lab model of the human eye
Damage to the retina (the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye) occurs in a number of vision loss conditions, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, Usher syndrome and Retinitis Pigmentosa.
Currently, therapies for these conditions are tested on animals, but this isn’t a perfect replica of the human eye.
In order to develop better treatments, we need to develop better models that more closely resemble the human retina. This is crucial to make sure that researchers can have a better idea of how effective a treatment might be at earlier stages of research.
Professor Lako is working on improving ‘lab models’ of the human retina, hopefully making them more representative of human eyes when it comes to testing new therapies.
Who: Professor Majlinda Lako
Where: Newcastle University
Amount: £250,000
Developing an alternative, long-lasting therapy for glaucoma?
Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness. It affects 80 million people worldwide.
Currently, the only way to treat glaucoma and prevent further blindness is to decrease eye pressure, but these treatments often fail to achieve long-term pressure reduction.
The Overby lab is therefore developing a new long-lasting therapy for glaucoma.
The therapy will aim to reduce pressure in the eye by restoring healthy levels of a molecule which promotes healthy drainage of eye fluid. This molecule’s activity is reduced in glaucoma, leading to fluid build-up and increase in pressure.
The team hopes to provide a new long-lasting treatment option for patients with glaucoma by designing a single injection therapy, reducing the need for continued reliance on eye drops.
Who: Professor Darryl Overby
Where: Imperial College London
Amount: £249,953
Spotlight on a previous project grant: tackling the corneal donation shortage
Want to know what you can achieve with a Fight for Sight Project Grant?
Dr Hannah Levis was awarded a project grant back in 2017 to research the feasibility of using artificial cornea drafts for patients requiring a transplant. The cornea is the clear layer at the front of the eye, but in a number of vision conditions the cornea becomes scarred or blurred and needs replacing. Due to various reasons, there is a shortage of cornea donations, meaning that for every corneal transplant that happens globally, there are 70 people in need.
Dr Levis used her Project Grant Award to gather evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of a synthetic graft that could be used as an alternative to human corneal transplants.
With the evidence gathered from the Fight for Sight-funded study, Dr Levis went on receive a Medical Research Council grant worth £1.4 million in 2022. This funding will enable the team to ensure the graft can be manufactured safely and at scale, in preparation for in-human clinical trials.
Who: Dr Hannah Levis
Where: University of Liverpool
Amount: £113,323
Watch our webinar with Dr Levis below.
Interested in applying for a Project Grant?
Our Project Grant round for 2025/26 has now closed, but it will re-open for applications in April next year. Find out more about our Project Grants here.
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