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Moorfields Eye Charity is the leading charity in the UK funding research into eye health and innovation and improvement in patient care to help patients at Moorfields Eye Hospital and globally.
As a key funder, their support is critical for supporting groundbreaking research, development of people’s expertise, sharing of knowledge and funding of equipment at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology.
Over the last year*, the charity awarded 23 grants to the institute. This enables researchers to make new discoveries and develop knowledge to advance understanding of eye conditions towards treatments to improve eye health and outcomes for patients.
Investing in equipment for research and learning
The charity funds state-of-the-art multi-user equipment at the institute. This ensures the most up-to-date technology is available and facilitates collaborative working as equipment can be shared across research departments and teams, helping to improve efficiency and accelerate research, as well as building connections and opportunities for teams from different areas to work together.
In 2019, the charity awarded a grant to install fish housing facilities at the institute, with the capacity to house almost 2,000 zebrafish across 140 individual tanks. Zebrafish are transformative animal models for vision research as they model many of the genetic eye diseases in humans. Now in 2024, the expansion of these facilities is enabling exciting new research. It is being used widely by research teams looking at how the eye develops and ages, the structure of the retina and genetic eye disease.
The charity awarded an equipment grant to install a new Seahorse Bioanalyser in the institute, which measures how cells are using energy. Since it was installed, it has enabled 16 different research groups from across the institute to better understand the metabolic processes occurring within eye cells, and explore the development of common diseases like diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
This groundbreaking research enabled by the equipment is contributing to wider advancements towards bringing earlier diagnosis and new treatments to benefit patients.
Supporting early career researchers
Moorfields Eye Charity believes it’s important to support early career researchers to develop new ideas: PhD students, post-doctoral fellows and others starting out on a career in research. The charity was proud to support the Early Career Researchers Symposium 2024 again this year. This is an annual opportunity for institute's researchers in the early stages of their careers to showcase their amazing work through presentations, posters and talks and networking. The charity supports the recognition awards for best presentation, poster and lay research summary.
Partnerships
The charity works in partnership with other national research funding organisations including the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Foundation, Diabetes UK and Fight for Sight to further investment in eye health research.
Working together in the future
Moorfields Eye Charity in partnership with UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital are creating the new centre for advancing eye health opening in 2027. The charity’s and UCL’s philanthropy campaign is making this possible. The charity, in partnership with UCL, is committed to raising over £100 million. The campaign has raised £73 million in commitments towards the capital component of the campaign to date. The new state-of-the-art centre integrating research, patient care and education will have an impact on millions of people with sight loss globally.
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- Associate Professor Alison Hardcastle using the Seahorse Bioanalyser.