BRPS receives £129k grant for gene study

In what is World Retina Week (September 18-23), the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society has been awarded a £129,500 grant from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in its 2006 medical research awards.

This is the second time in five years that the BRPS has won one of the grants, which will fund a two-year project on 'The identification of novel loci and genes causing autosomal recessive retinal disease using autozygosity mapping of consanguineous pedigrees'.

Project leader Andrew Webster, honorary consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital, carries out research through the Institute of Ophthalmology, at University College London. He aims to complete the jigsaw of discovering genes that cause different forms of the eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and related conditions.