The announcents were made at the not-for-profit’s annual general meeting on Sunday, which was held in Perth as part of RANZCO’s 49th Annual Scientific Congress. Grants were awarded to a variety of projects, including research into retinal gene therapy, eyedrops that limit short-sightedness in children, and a new native scaffold for corneal epithelial regeneration.The 12 successful recipients were selected from a field of 52 potential applicants, following a rigorous process which ORIA honourary treasurer Associate Professor Paul Healey said was becoming increasingly difficult.{{quote-a:r-w:450-I:2-Q:“Our seed grants get these researchers established, which then allows th to attract much bigger grants and go on to develop fantastic teams that are developing new cures for blindness in Australia.”-WHO:Associate Professor Paul Healey}}“The feedback that we get every year is that the quality of the grants continue to increase, and that the ones we’re funding are at the very highest level,” he said.“When we look back at the projects we’ve funded over the years, a great number of th have led to major teams around Australia doing absolutely fabulous, groundbreaking research which is right at the top in terms of world’s best quality.”Healey also pointed out that many of the grants awarded by ORIA go towards supporting new investigators, who traditionally struggle to attract larger government grants.“We focus very much on early development and novel ideas to try and give a lot of the future leaders in ophthalmic and vision research an early break to get th going,” he said.“Our seed grants get these researchers established, which then allows th to attract much bigger grants and go on to develop fantastic teams that are developing new cures for blindness in Australia.”ORIA does not receive government support and all of its funding for ophthalmic research comes from public donations. Healey stressed the importance of recognising these donors, and also highlighted the fact that all of the proceeds go toward supporting eye research in Australia.“The great thing about ORIA is all the costs involved in running it are paid for by all the ophthalmologists in Australia every year, all the research committee mbers and board mbers do all their work for free,” he said.“That’s really important. When you’re making a donation to a charity you want to know that the money ends up in the place you want it to go, and that happens 100% of the time with ORIA.“In celebrating the doctors that have received these awards, we should also celebrate those people whose the grants are named after, because without th we wouldn’t have the money to support these researchers in the first place,” he added.“Some of th are ophthalmologists, but most of th are just ordinary people who wanted to make a difference.”
RECIPIENTS
| ORIA/ESME ANDERSON GRANT Dr Isabel Lopez Sanchez & A/Prof Ian Trounce Therapeutic transcriptomic biomarkers in LHON $43,500 |
| ORIA/HARDIE ANSELMI BEQUEST GRANT Dr Thomas Edwards & Dr Doron Hickey A pre-clinical gene therapy study for Bietti crystalline dystrophy $49,500 |
| ORIA/RICHARD AND INA HUMBLEY FOUNDATION GRANT Dr Raymond Wong & Dr Samuel Lukowski Building a reference transcriptomic atlas for the human retina at a single cell level $50,000 |
| ORIA NEW INVESTIGATOR GRANT Dr Antony Clark Eye drops to limit short-sightedness in children $50,000 |
| ORIA/R & L LOWE GRANT Prof David Mackey & Ms Lisa Kearns Establishing risk of vision loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy families $49,500 |
| ORIA NEW INVESTIGATOR/MARY TILDEN BEQUEST GRANT Dr Flora Hui Does NAD+ repletion with nicotinamide produce short-term improvent in visual function in early glaucoma? $46,500 |
| ORIA/IVY MAY STEPHENSON GRANT Prof N Di Girolamo A novel native scaffold for corneal epithelial regeneration $49,500 |
| ORIA GRANT Prof Robyn Jamieson, De Leszek Lisowski, A/Prof John Grigg, A/Prof Ulrike Grünert & A/Prof Michele Madigan Retinal gene therapy delivery: Best route, right place $50,000 |
| ORIA/MARY TILDEN BEQUEST GRANT Prof Jamie Craig, Dr Mona Awadalla & A/Prof John Landers Intraocular pressure variation around the clock in Glaucoma $47,500 |
| ORIA GRANT Dr Elin Gray, Dr Tim Isaacs & Prof Mel Ziman Liquid Biopsy for Prognosis of Uveal Melanoma $49,500 |
| ORIA NEW INVESTIGATOR GRANT Dr Yu Xiang George Kong Monitoring of Visual Fields at Home Using a Portable Tablet Device $48,500 |
| ORIA/RANZCO NSW BRANCH GRANT Dr Weiyong Shen & Prof Mark Gillies Consequences of genetically disrupting serine/glycine metabolism in the retina $50,000 |
