Our achievements so far

The vision of the Macular Society is to end macular disease through funding world-class medical research. Everything we fund is aimed at improving the treatment for or quality of life of patients with macular disease. 

It is thanks to our amazing donors and members that we are able to fund this research to beat macular disease.

Our research funding over the last 30+ years has led to outcomes which will make very real differences for people with macular disease, now and in the future. You can read more about this in our Research Impact report below but here are two examples:

MD_evReader

The MD_evReader (Macular Degeneration Eccentric Viewing Reader) is an app (for Apple and Android tablets) developed in association with the Macular Society by Professor Robin Walker of Royal Holloway, University of London. The app scrolls text from ePub documents (such as an eBook) as a single line of scrolling text to support and enhance the use of the ‘eccentric viewing’ technique used by people with macular degeneration.

Manchester Eye Tissue Repository (METR)

There is an unmet need for human eye tissue to study AMD (age-related macular degeneration) and learn more about the disease. Human eyes donated for corneal transplant can also be used for research and are a vital untapped resource. However, effective ways to collect and archive this tissue were lacking and it was going to waste.  The Macular Society therefore funded the creation of the METR to retrieve the donor eye tissue from the Manchester Eye Bank, which supplies corneas for transplantation. The METR is now well established. It has collected eye tissue from over 1,100 donors and is supplying tissue to research teams across the UK and Europe.

Our priorities and how we will make the biggest possible impact for people with macular disease are set out in our Research Strategy 2020-2030 below.