Scientific Grants and Awards Programs

Research Priority Areas

The Foundation Fighting Blindness supports research that contribute to preventions and interventions of inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) and atrophic (dry) age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

(One or more of the six research priority areas below should be addressed in proposals submitted to the Foundation’s award programs)

1. Novel Medical Therapies (NMT)
   1. The goal is to promote the development of new therapies (small molecules) that slow or prevent the loss of retinal function.
   2. Applications that target the following areas are of interest:
      1. Development or testing or therapeutics for photoreceptors or RPE-centered retinal degenerations.
      2. Development or testing of therapeutics with broad spectrum or mutual-independent applications.
      3. High-throughput phenotypic drug screening tools (markers, target, etc.) relevant to the human orphan inherited retinal degenerative diseases.
      4. The development of improved animal models of human disease to enhance functional testing of drug effectiveness and novel drug delivery systems.
         
         
2. Gene Therapy (GT)
   1. The goal is to find a viral and/or non-viral gene delivery system(s) to treat dominant, recessive, and X-linked retinal degenerative diseases. The application must also address a plan to evaluate efficacy and safety using pre-clinical models in preparation for human clinical trials. The Foundation limits its funding to the development of the technology that will benefit overall retinal gene-therapy strategies.
   2. Applications that target the following areas are of interest:
      1. Gene therapy delivery methods
         1. Target specific retinal cells.
         2. Effectively and efficiently transduce all relevant retinal cell types.
         3. Develop strategies to deliver complex constructs (large DNA, gene editing tools in the form of DNA, mRNA, or protein).
         4. Clinically relevant approaches for gene editing.
            
            
3. Cell and Molecular Mechanisms of Retinal Disease (CMM)
   1. CMM's goal is to expand our basic understanding of the causes and pathogenesis of the inherited retinal degenerations and of dry (atrophic) age-related macular disease to provide the basis of efforts directed toward slowing down and ideally reversing vision loss.
   2. Applications that target the following areas are of interest:
      1. Pathways linking mutations in multiple genes to common disease mechanisms, with the goal of identifying pan-disease therapeutic targets
      2. Develop and characterize cone-rich and/or non-rodent animal retinal degeneration disease models relevant to human retinal degenerations.
      3. Identification of pathways and molecular interactions relevant to the development, progression, and treatment of AMD and the retinal degenerations.
      4. Adaptation and application of novel screening and drug development technologies to the retinal disease field.
4. Genetics (GE)
   1. The Foundation Fighting Blindness supports research to identify a.) genes and mutations causing inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) and b.) genetic factors contributing to atrophic (dry) age-related macular degeneration (AMD).  For both, the goal is to incorporate these finding into clinical care, and to foster development and application of treatments and cures.  Improved clinical care, and treatments and cures, must be potential outcomes of all supported research.
   2. Applications that target the following areas are of interest:
      1. Develop and apply advanced genetic testing methods to find new IRD genes, novel IRD mutations, and IRD mutations refractory to conventional genetic testing such as structural rearrangements and regulatory variants.
      2. Develop laboratory and/or computational tools to identify and confirm or exclude pathogenic mutations, such as variants of uncertain significance.
      3. Identify genetic and environmental factors modifying clinical expression of IRD mutations.
      4. Continue to identify and understand genetic risk factors associated with dry AMD, including both rare and polymorphic variants; and further define risk alleles, risk haplotypes and related genetic factors.
5. Clinical-Structure and Function (CL)
   1. The goal is to advance research that develops improved technology and standardizes processes to establish relationships between retinal function and structure in retinal degenerative diseases and enables early disease detection. N.B.: If a clinical application focuses on a therapeutic intervention, the application should identify and submit their application using the most relevant RPA for that therapy, such as GT, or NMT, instead of using CL.
   2. Applications that target the following areas are of particular interest:
      
      1. Develop and validate diagnostic technology and endpoints for clinical trials, that include, but are not limited to:
         1. Multicentered natural history studies that correlate genotype and phenotype.
         2. Biomarker identification.
         3. Improvements in retinal imaging or grading of images.
      2. Proposals that leverage data collected through the FFB Consortium
6. Regenerative Medicine (RM)

   1. The goal is to develop strategies to rescue or replace degenerating or dead retinal cells leading towards restoration of lost vision, or slowing and/or prevention of vision loss.