Fight for Sight: Advancing the Treatment and Prevention of Eye Disease

Abstract

Fight for Sight was founded in 1965 by Dr. Norman Ashton, C.B.E., director of pathology at the University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology and a world leader in research into eye diseases. In the same year, the Prevention of Blindness Research Fund (which later became the British Eye Research Foundation) was establishedwith funds raised by the Royal Eye Hospital League of Friends. Fight for Sight, as it exists today, evolved through amerger of Fight for Sight and the British Eye Research Foundation in 2005. This merger created the largest national charity dedicated to funding eye research in the U.K. The charity’s aim is to fund research that increases knowledge, which leads to prevention, cures, and improved treatments for eye diseases and offers a better quality of life for patients. The eye diseases that we are addressing include a wide range of maladies, from age-relatedmacular degeneration and glaucoma to cataract, diabetic retinopathy, corneal eye disease, and trachoma. We also are studying various inherited eye diseases and the causes of childhood blindness. Fight for Sight-funded researchers are based at academic institutions and hospitals across the U.K. and may be conducting research either in the U.K. or overseas. Each year, the charity receives more than 100 applications for funding, but we are able to fund only 15%–20% of these applications. To decide which applications to fund, Fight for Sight undertakes a rigorous process of peer review; applications are assessed by international leaders in the relevant fields and by our own scientific panel. This process helps ensure that the research funded is of the highest standard and that applications are assessed in the context of other research being undertaken worldwide. As a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), the peer review process complies with AMRC guidelines for best practice. In the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2011, the charity’s total income amounted to about U.S. $7.47 million (£4.8 million), and the charity committed more than U.S. $5.3 million (£3.4 million) of this to new research grants. Fight for Sight is dependent on voluntary donations and actively raises money from a variety of sources, including grant-making trusts and companies, legacies, sponsored and regional events, and individual donations.