Catalyst Grant Winners

The award recipients will receive critical funding to test promising ideas, generate new evidence and help us better understand, diagnose and treat blinding eye diseases. It’s this kind of research that has already helped make 75 per cent of vision loss preventable or treatable with early detection and intervention.

This year, the response was especially encouraging. FBC received more applications than anticipated from researchers across Canada — a powerful sign of the momentum, innovation and ambition within Canada’s vision research community.

Each proposal underwent a rigorous peer-review process involving leading Canadian and international experts. From an outstanding field of applicants, six projects were ultimately recommended for funding, receiving more than $1.19 million over two years. Several of this year’s projects also build directly on discoveries made possible through previous FBC funding.

Led by Dr. Currie, an early-career investigator, this project seeks to answer a fundamental question about how the PAX6 gene controls normal eye development. PAX6 is one of the master regulators of eye development, and mutations in this gene are associated with a range of inherited eye diseases, including aniridia, as well as developmental disorders affecting the brain and central nervous system.

Using advanced structural biology and cellular models, Dr. Currie’s team will investigate how PAX6 functions and how disease-causing mutations disrupt its activity. By providing a fundamentally new understanding of this critical gene, the research will generate foundational knowledge relevant to a broad range of eye diseases and establish a platform for developing future therapies.

Dr. Rackus and their research team are developing a novel biosensor to improve the treatment of neovascular or wet AMD by enabling more personalized treatment decisions.

Current treatment relies primarily on retinal imaging to determine when anti-VEGF injections are needed, which can result in some individuals receiving treatment too early while others are treated too late. The team will develop a point-of-care sensor that measures VEGF, the key protein driving disease, from a small eye fluid sample collected during routine clinic visits. Using samples collected from more than 100 individuals with AMD, the researchers will determine whether changes in VEGF can predict disease recurrence before it is visible on imaging. If successful, this approach could reduce unnecessary treatments, identify disease recurrence earlier, and transform how clinicians personalize care for individuals living with AMD.

This project builds on previous Fighting Blindness Canada-funded research that helped uncover how mutations in the PCDH15 gene cause vision loss in Usher syndrome type 1F, a rare inherited condition that causes deafness, balance problems, and progressive blindness.

Using a unique zebrafish model developed through this earlier work, Dr. Tropepe’s team discovered that the retina relies on a previously unrecognized, eye-specific form of the PCDH15 protein that is essential for photoreceptor health. This project will identify the proteins that work with this eye-specific form and test whether restoring its function can prevent retinal degeneration. The findings will establish the foundation for future therapies aimed at preserving vision in individuals with Usher syndrome type 1F and may provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying related retinal diseases.