Foundation Fighting Blindness

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OVERVIEW: The Foundation Fighting Blindness funds a wide range of research that addresses retinal diseases.

IP TAKE: This funder remains one of the world’s leading private organizations in the retinal disease research field. It runs several grant and fellowship programs for doctoral-level researchers working in specific areas of interest, including retinal and macular degenerations. Application guidelines and due dates vary significantly by program; grantseekers should consult individual program pages prior to submitting letters to the foundation.

PROFILE: Established in 1971 by “passionate group of families,” the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) supports efforts to “drive the research that would lead to preventions, treatments, and vision restoration for the spectrum of degenerative retinal diseases.”

Grants for Diseases

The foundation’s grantmaking centers completely on addressing retinal diseases and, in this vein, runs the following grant and awards programs:

  • Individual Investigator/Clinical Innovation Awards support “research in areas with the greatest potential to move toward treatments and cures for the inherited orphan retinal degenerative diseases and dry age-related macular degeneration. These awards support researchers at the doctoral level and offer $100,000 a year for up to three years.

  • The Free Family AMD Research Award supports collaborative and multidisciplinary projects that seek “solutions for early, dry AMD.”

  • The Career Development Award Program consists of multi-year support for “physicians’ and physician-scientists’ career development through a multi-level, tiered approach across the duration of their career.”

  • The Diana Davis Spencer Clinical/Research Fellowship Award program supports as many as three post-residency clinicians with grants of $65,000 for research in the area of “orphan inherited retinal degenerations.”

  • The foundation’s Program Project Award “engages cross-disciplinary investigators to drive retinal degenerative disease research efforts” surrounding a single research hypothesis that pertains to the foundation’s overarching mission. Gratmaking for this award targets “gaps or therapeutic goals identified by the foundation, and the foundation may award grants totaling up to $500,000 per year from this program.

  • The Research Core Award: Non-rodent Large Animal Award supports “individuals or teams striving to identify, develop, characterize and support relevant large animal models of inherited retinal disease or dry age-related macular degeneration that are poorly modeled in rodents for which canine models do not currently exist.” Grants are awarded in amount of up to $500,000 per year for up to three years.

  • Finally, the foundation’s Translational Research Acceleration Program Award program aims to “accelerate the movement of preclinical research toward an Investigational New Drug filing and into clinical trials to provide a robust and diverse pipeline of potential therapies to fight inherited retinal degenerations and dry age-related macular degeneration. Priority areas include novel medical therapies, genetic technologies and regenerative medicine.

Important Grant Details:

This funder awards over $10 million a year in grants and fellowships. Awards are generally made in set amounts per program.

  • Grants tend to go to doctoral-level researchers at leading universities and institutes in the U.S. This means that applicants must hold a “Ph.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.O., O.D., or equivalent degree and have a faculty position or equivalent at a domestic or foreign non-profit organization, or public or private institution, such as a university, college, medical school, hospital, research institute, or laboratory.”

  • It is worth noting that this funder’s website offers significant information about pre-clinical an clinical trials for new medications and treatments in its areas of interest. For additional information about past grants and awards, see the foundation’s funded grants page.

  • FFB runs open application programs for some of its grant programs and accepts letters of inquiry for others.

General inquiries may be submitted to the foundation at any time via email, which is info@FightBlindness.org. The foundation may also be called toll free at (800) 683-5555 or locally in Baltimare at (410) 423-0600.

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