CHOROIDEREMIA RESEARCH FOUNDATION INVITES PROPOSALS FOR THE 2025 RANDY WHEELOCK RESEARCH AWARD

Proposals related to finding a cure for a rare inherited retinal disease are due by June 30, 2025

SPRINGFIELD, MA, UNITED STATES, April 21, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Choroideremia Research Foundation (CRF) is pleased to welcome proposal submissions for the 6th Annual Randy Wheelock Research Award. The award designation recognizes emerging scientists and research professionals working on choroideremia (CHM) or related vision loss issues. Eligible recipients will be either doctoral or post-doctoral candidates and professionals, and awards will be granted in the amount of $50,000.

Introduced in 2020, the Randy Wheelock Award celebrates the decades-long advocacy of its namesake to find treatment or a cure for CHM. As CRF’s Chief Advisor for Research and Therapy Development, Randy was an integral part of the organization’s achievements over the years. He collaborated with researchers and other rare disease groups to leverage assets and scientific knowledge in search of treatment options and a cure for CHM.
CRF recognizes a range of study aims when evaluating proposals. Previous award recipients include:

Kim Edwards (2020), PhD Student, Graduate Research Assistant, Cellular and Molecular Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Identifying the Function of REP-1 Protein in Retina (RPE/Photoreceptors) and Non-Retina Tissues.”

Cynthia Qian, MD (2021), Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Montreal, “Characterizing the phenotypical findings in female carriers with confirmed CHM mutation using multimodal imaging and functional test.”

Bhanu P. Telugu, PhD (2022), Associate Professor at the Division of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, and Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of RenOVAte Biosciences, Inc., “A Novel Porcine Pre-Clinical Model for Choroideremia Research”

Luisa de Lemos, PhD (2023), Postdoctoral Researcher at the Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal,
“Pathways of Retinal Pigment Epithelium Degeneration in Choroideremia”

Shalhevet Izraeli, MSc (2024), Student, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Israel, “Using suppressor transfer RNAs to correct CHM nonsense mutations.”

General grant applications will also be welcome during this funding cycle. For more information about applying, please visit the Apply for Funding page on curechm.org/research/. Proposals are due June 30, 2025.

About Choroideremia
Choroideremia (CHM) is a rare inherited form of blindness affecting approximately 1 in 50,000 people. Due to its x-linked inheritance pattern males are most severely affected with females usually experiencing much milder visual impairment. Symptoms begin in early childhood with night blindness and restriction of visual field being the earliest noticeable effects, eventually progressing to complete blindness. An estimated 6,000 people in the United States and 10,000 in the European Union are impacted by Choroideremia. There are currently no approved treatments for Choroideremia. For more information, visit curechm.org/choroideremia

About the Choroideremia Research Foundation Inc.
The Choroideremia Research Foundation was founded in 2000 as an international fundraising and patient advocacy organization to stimulate research on CHM. Since its inception, the CRF has provided over $6 million in research awards and is the largest financial supporter of CHM research worldwide. Research funded by the CRF has led to the development of a CHM animal model, the pre-clinical production of gene therapy vectors currently in clinical trials, and the CRF Biobank which stores tissue and stem cell samples donated by CHM patients. For more information, visit curechm.org

Kathi Wagner
Choroideremia Research Foundation Inc
+1 800-210-0233
kathiwagner@curechm.org
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