FFB Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

Fellowship funding over a maximum of two years to support the training of postdoctoral fellows engaged in innovative research focused on inherited retinal degenerations (IRD) and dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD). 

Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) is a US-based 501(c)(3) medical research charity that funds basic, laboratory-based, translational, clinical and pre-clinical research in support of its mission to advance the prevention, treatment, and restoration of vision for inherited retinal diseases (IRD), including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and the entire spectrum of retinal degenerative diseases.

For its 2025/26 funding cycle, the Foundation is seeking to award a limited number of Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards to support the training of postdoctoral fellows engaged in innovative research projects focused on IRDs and dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD).

The fellowship provides financial support over a maximum of two years to enable fellows to pursue innovative research while working closely with mentors, to foster professional growth, networking, and potential long-term collaborations.

Proposals for the Postdoctoral Fellowships should align with the FBB’s Research Priority Areas (RPAs) and aim to address specific gaps within these RPAs related to retinal diseases, including:

• Genetic Technologies: To develop viral and non-viral delivery system(s) for genes and complex constructs (e.g editing tools, mRNA and proteins), and the development of RNA editing techniques.
• Restorative Therapies (includes cell-based approaches, visual prosthetics and optogenetics): To restore sight after photoreceptor loss by strategies to rescue or replace degenerating or dead retinal cells, optimise visual prostheses, and develop optogenetic strategies to confer light sensitivity to neuronal cells in the absence of fully functional photoreceptors.
• Novel Medical Therapies: To support research directed toward developing drugs to retain retinal function and structure in retinal degenerative diseases, including better functional testing of drug effectiveness, and novel drug delivery systems.
• Clinical: Structure and Function: Develop improved technology and standardised processes to establish relationships between clinical retina function and retina structure in retinal degenerative diseases and to enable early disease detection.
• Genetics: To improve abilities to identify disease-causing mutations in inherited retinal disorders; to identify inherited risk factors for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and the relative contributions of associated genetic and non-genetic factors (e.g., lifestyle), sufficient to use such knowledge in developing treatments and preventions.
• Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Disease: To improve understanding of the nature and cause of disease in inherited retinal degenerations so that improved therapies for the prevention of vision loss can be developed.
  

Fellows are expected to take primary responsibility for writing and preparing their applications, with the understanding that mentors will provide substantial guidance and support throughout the process. While proposals that directly address the areas of particular interest will receive  priority consideration, the Foundation will also consider highly novel research that may fall outside these defined goals.