StemCell Therapy

PUBLISHED: 16:34 11 April 2017 | UPDATED: 17:26 11 April 2017

Bianca Wild

Sir Hugh Duberly, Addenbrookes consultant paediatric ophthalmologist Louise Allen and Fight Against Blindness' chief executive Clive Fisher.

Archant

Email this article to a friend

To send a link to this page you must be logged in.

Fight Against Blindness aim is to help children and their families affected by sight loss cope with the difficulties of their condition and to fund research into curing eye disease.

Chief executive Clive Fisher, who founded the charity in 2008, told the Crow: We started at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and the work we fund is primarily based there, but programmes that are successful are rolled out and we how have programmes at Southampton General, Bristol Eye Hospital, and one based within the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

This is an exciting time for the charity, as we are on the cusp of big things.

The launch of their new Childrens Sight-Line appeal at Anglia Ruskin Universitys Cambridge campus was hosted by the charitys Patron Sir Hugh Duberly who has just stepped down from his post of 14-years as the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire and Mr Fisher hopes it will raise 30,000 to develop a pioneering method of assessing visual function in children with eye and brain conditions.

Funds raised by the appeal will enable the technique to be implemented in iPad technology, which is easily portable for use in wards and community settings throughout Cambs and then nationally and internationally.

FAB is also the only charity to fund paediatric cognitive behavioural therapy and gene testing for children with sight loss, something Mr Fisher who worked in science and engineering before his retirement is extremely passionate about.

It is so important to me, and the reason is really straight forward because children are the future and the funding needs to go to the right place, he said.

CBT will help children suffering sight loss around the home, help the go to school and to hospital appointments, which can be extremely difficult.

Our main limitation is funding.

Consultant paediatric ophthalmologist Louise Allen gave a presentation on the launch evening to an invited audience, showing that clinical trials of the revolutionary but large and static prototype has already shown its superior performance over currently available methods.

Mr Fisher said the result will be an effective and accurate visual acuity and field loss test to measure childrens visual pathway, which is vital in giving early recognition of diseases such as retinal dystrophy and brain tumours to start therapies to prevent further sight loss.

To find out more about Fight Against Blindness and the Childrens Sight-Line appeal, or for more information on how to donate, go to http://www.fabrp.co.uk.

Read more:
Childhood blindness charity based in Thriplow launches new fundraising appeal for pioneering treatment programme ... - Royston Crow

This entry was posted on April 12, 2017 at 6:42 am and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |