Raising Our Sights
2025 IMPACT REPORT
2025 marked the first year of Raising Our Sights: Vision 2030, our five-year strategy to accelerate research, deepen community connections, and expand our impact across Canada. This report celebrates the progress you made possible in 2025. We worked alongside researchers, clinicians, advocates, community partners, individuals and families affected by blinding eye disease, and supporters like you to continue driving progress.
Fueling Breakthroughs
Every year brings new discoveries, new connections, and new reasons for us to feel hope — and 2025 was no exception.
$2.6M
committed across 24 research projects
1,575
participants at educational events
700+
fundraising event participants & volunteers
Our Impact Over the Years
Discoveries don’t happen over night. They happen after decades of dedicated research with one discovery leading to another. That’s why FBC has been funding ground-breaking research for more than five decades. In that time, FBC research has helped identify genes that cause inherited blinding eye diseases and contributed to breakthrough clinical trials.
$42M+
invested in research
$5M+
invested in education, advocacy and community connection programs
745+
scientific discoveries
A New Strategic Plan
Building the Future of Vision Health
2025 was the first year of Raising Our Sights: Vision 2030, an ambitious five-year strategy that challenges us to think bigger and bolder about the progress we can make possible for people living with vision loss. Created with input from people living with vision loss, researchers, clinicians, donors, and partners across Canada, this strategy focuses on creating a future where no one faces vision loss alone, where support is easier to access, and where research continues to bring new possibilities within reach.
Funding Future Discoveries
A major research milestone was reached in 2025 when the first patient was dosed in a stem cell clinical trial for primary photoreceptor diseases, including RP. Led by BlueRock Therapeutics LP, it is the first therapy of its kind to enter clinical testing for these conditions. The trial builds on years of work by Dr. David Gamm and his team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Supported in part through FBC’s Restore Vision 20/20 initiative, Dr. David Gamm’s team demonstrated that laboratory-grown stem cells can develop into photoreceptor cells and integrate with retinal tissue.
Supporting Tomorrow’s Research Leaders
Through the Clinician-Scientist Emerging Leader (CSEL) Awards, FBC supports emerging clinician-scientists who are advancing research while caring for patients. Here are our 2025 CSEL awardees:
- Dr. Anne Xuan-Lan Nguyen is studying why some people with thyroid eye disease develop serious vision-threatening complications. Her goal is to identify patients at risk earlier and improve outcomes before permanent vision loss occurs.
- Dr. Lia Huo is exploring a gene-agnostic treatment for RP using a slow-release gel that could help protect the eye’s light-sensing cells. Because the approach is not tied to a specific genetic mutation, it has the potential to benefit a broader range of people living with the disease.
Turning Science into Sight
Behind every breakthrough made in a laboratory are individuals and families whose lives are touched by vision loss and researchers who dared to ask bold questions. These are just some of their stories.
Victoria Nolan
When Victoria Nolan lost her sight shortly after the birth of her daughter, she faced a crossroads. Vision loss could have defined her by limitation — but instead, she chose to redefine what was possible.
Read Her Story
Samantha Slack
For Samantha Slack, it started with a simple question from her son. After learning about Terry Fox at school, Logan asked, “Why don’t you do what Terry did?”
Learn More
Doug Carr
When Doug Carr learned he had retinitis pigmentosa (RP) at age 38, he didn’t panic. Having watched his dad, who also had RP, cope with his own progressive vision loss, Doug took the news in stride.
Read his Story
Moving together for sight
Our annual MOVE FOR SIGHT event reached even further in 2025, uniting participants across Canada in support of a future without vision loss. On June 22, 2025, hundreds of supporters walked, cycled, hiked, surfed, volunteered and fundraised to raise awareness and enable sight-saving research like the projects featured in this report.
Education & Connection
In 2025, FBC introduced several new opportunities for learning and peer support. From an online webinar series exploring various inherited retinal diseases to more intimate in-person events with our Coffee Connection series to large-scale conferences, our View Point education programs offered something for everyone.
Download the 2024 Impact Report
Learn more about the impact you helped create and download Raising Our Sights: 2025 Annual Report.
Join the Fight!
Learn how your support is helping to bring a future without blindness into focus! Be the first to learn about the latest breakthroughs in vision research and events in your community by subscribing to our e-newsletter that lands in inboxes the beginning of each month.