Fighting Blindness Awards support Irish Representation at ARVO 2024

A key priority for Fighting Blindness is to support the next generation of vision researchers. Fighting Blindness has offered Career Development Awards since 2022 to early-stage researchers and clinicians for training, networking, and collaborations to support their career development.

In the most recent round of the Career Development Awards, funding was awarded to three early-stage researchers to support their professional training and participation at international conferences, such as ARVO (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology).

Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) is an integral part of this funding scheme, as the Fighting Blindness PPI Review Panel of individuals living with sight loss are actively involved in the review and selection of successful applications. The PPI Review Panel is made of members of our Visually Impaired Person’s (V.I.P.) Network – to learn more about the V.I.P. Network please click here.

Grace Ruddin, PhD student in the Kennedy group at UCD, previously received a Career Development Award from Fighting Blindness to support her attendance at ARVO 2024. The ARVO annual conference is one of the largest eye and vision research events worldwide, bringing together international scientific experts, clinicians, and early-stage researchers in the field of vision research and eye science. The ARVO 2024 conference had more than 11,600 attendees and took place from 5 – 9 May, in Seattle, Washington, in the United States.

At this event, Grace had the opportunity to present her research on Inherited Retinal Degenerations (IRD) through a poster presentation. She discussed with attendees how the Kennedy group is using zebrafish to study the ‘RGR’ gene, which is linked to vision and retinal degeneration. Her work even attracted significant interest from international researchers! If you would like to learn more about Grace’s project at UCD, please click here.

Grace shared her experience at the ARVO conference, highlighting how the support from the Career Development Award contributed to her professional growth. The event offered numerous opportunities to network with international researchers and vision loss experts from both academia and industry, along with valuable resources from the exhibitors’ area. Grace commented:

… it gave me the chance to consider the various employment opportunities that are available to me following the completion of my PhD. I was also able to learn about new products that are on the market.

The event not only provided an excellent lineup of speakers across a variety of topics related to vision research, but also offered the chance for early-career researchers to receive guidance from experts and other attendees. Grace added:

I gained additional career advice from attending the “Women in Vision” lunch. I had the opportunity to speak with women from varioussectors. I learned how although some of them were not working in an academic lab, they were still focused on vision research. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on how my own career might progress in the future.

Grace is also passionate about Public and Patient Involvement (P.P.I) in her research and has actively participated in previous Fighting Blindness initiatives, including a P.P.I training event held in Dublin last year. This event aimed to introduce P.P.I to both researchers and individuals affected by vision loss. Grace highlighted how the insights she gained at ARVO 2024 will support her research and, ultimately, be of benefit to those impacted by vision loss:

… at the ARVO 2024 meeting I had the opportunity to learn about different research methods used by other researchers by attending various talks and poster sessions. I hope to use these in my research so that I can complete my objectives.

Once again, Fighting Blindness want to congratulate Grace Ruddin for receiving this award and highlight the importance of her research for the vision loss community. We wish her every success in her future career.

Fighting Blindness is delighted to announce that we are now accepting applications for our third round of Career Development Awards.

To learn more and apply please click here.

Deadline for submissions: 5pm, 14th October 2024!