March 2023

We’re delighted to announce that, after carefully reviewing six applications in 2022, we have awarded funding to three exciting new research projects, totalling just under £260,000. This would not have been possible without our amazing donors and fundraisers, those who leave legacies and the contributions from our members and senior researchers who helped guide our decisions. Thanks to you all, we can continue to support researchers to understand the causes, improve treatments and positively impact the lives of every family affected by EB.

Researchers will begin work on these new projects in 2023 targeting symptoms of all types of EB...

 

EB eye drops (Prof Liam Grover, University of Birmingham)

Pain, scarring and loss of sight  can occur in several types of EB. This could be alleviated by the new eye drops being developed in this project.

This award of £144,569.00 will run for two years.

The drops that are currently used tend to stay on the eye for short periods of time, meaning that they must be used over and over again throughout a day. In this project, we are trying to solve this problem by introducing a new eye drop that has been shown to stay on the surface of the eye for a much longer time. This will mean that patients need to apply their drops much less frequently. In the longer-term, these eye drop could be filled with molecules that can prevent scarring from occurring. We hope that this will provide patients with more freedom and a greater quality of life.

Professor Liam Grover

Discover more

 

Screening drugs to target RDEB skin cancer (Prof Gareth Inman, University of Glasgow)

Over 3000 approved drugs will be screened to identify those that kill skin cancer cells and could be repurposed to treat the aggressive form of skin cancer which frequently affects people with RDEB.

This award of £98,891.52 will run for 18 months.

The potential of drug re-purposing of drugs already clinically approved for safe use in patients with established dose and scheduling regimens holds exciting potential for EB patients. Here we will undertake an unbiased drug re-purposing screen of over 3,000 FDA approved drugs... At the completion of these studies we will have identified and taken 2 drugs all the way through our pipeline which will provide compelling evidence for their rapid deployment in clinical trials in RDEB patients for treatment of the ultimately lethal cancer complication of this devastating disease.

Professor Gareth Inman

Discover more

 

Reducing eye scarring  (Prof Keith Martin, University of Cambridge)

EB can affect the cornea of the eye, resulting in severe pain and impaired vision. This project will grow cells from human corneas that can undergo scarring behaviour like those in the eyes of people with EB. These can then be used for the first test of a potential anti-scarring eyedrop to save the sight of children with EB.

This award of £15,000 is for a small grant that will run for 12 months.

 

Find out more about EB research or find out how to apply for funding.