The Moorfields Eye Hospital Development Fund has been awarded a grant of £250,000 by the Freemasons’ Grand Charity to support research into therapies to prevent ocular scarring and enable stem cell regeneration of sight. The award is the largest individual non-masonic grant made by the Freemasons’ Grand Charity this year. A number of non-masonic charities across England and Wales will also benefit from grants totalling nearly £2 million.

The grant will be used to employ two Freemasons’ Grand Charity researchers to further develop new antiscarring therapies that will potentially improve glaucoma surgical treatment for many people. The hospital anticipates that this therapy will also make adult stem cell transplantation for regeneration of the damaged nerve possible, giving the hope of restoring some sight in situations which are currently untreatable.

Moorfields Eye Hospital hosted a reception today (14th October) to thank the Freemasons’ Grand Charity for their significant support and to provide an opportunity to meet some of the research team and learn more about this exciting project which has the potential to restore sight.

Photo above pictured from left to right; Russell Race (Metropolitan Grand Master of the Metropolitan Grand Lodge and Metropolitan Grand Chapter), Rudy Markham (Chairman, Moorfields Eye Hospital), Laura Chapman (Chief Executive Freemasons' Grand Charity) and Grahame Elliott (President of the Freemasons' Grand Charity).

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Notes to editors
About Moorfields

• Moorfields is one of the world’s leading eye hospitals, providing expertise in clinical care, research and education.  We have provided excellence in eye care for more than 200 years and we continue to be at the forefront of new breakthroughs and developments.   We are an integral part of one of the UK’s first academic health science centres, UCL Partners, and recently celebrated five years as one of the country’s first NHS foundation trusts.
• We treat the entire range of eye diseases, from common complaints to rare conditions which require treatments not available anywhere else in the UK.  We dealt with around 400,000 patient visits in 2008/09 at our main hospital base in London’s City Road and at 12 other sites in and around the capital, enabling us to provide expert care closer to patients’ homes.
• With our research partners at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, we run one of the largest ophthalmic research programmes in the world and have the highest measure of scientific productivity and impact in the world for our research activity. 
• For further information, please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk.
• The Moorfields Eye Hospital Development Fund (Reg Chaity No. 282806) is an independent charity that is principally involved with specific projects and campaigns associated with the hospital, such as the development of Moorfields’ new children’s eye centre and particular research programmes.
• For further information about charitable activity at Moorfields Eye Hospital please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk/charities or call 020 7566 2565.

About the Freemasons’ Grand Charity

• The Freemason’s Grand Charity is a grant-making charity, which supports people in need. Since 1981, it has made grants totaling over £80m to thousands of individuals and non-masonic charities. The work of the Freemasons’ Grand Charity continues a commitment to charitable support that began nearly 300 years ago in the earliest days of organised Freemasonry.
• All of the money distributed is provided by Freemasons and their families, mainly through an annual contribution made by individual Masons and fundraising festivals held each year.