in their 20s and 30s are losing their sight due to mito - and we need your help to restore their sight today!

Help us reach our $25,000 goal.
Your tax deductable donation will fund research to restore sight.

Your support will fund Dr Raymond Wong’s investigations into a gene therapy to treat LHON, a type of mito that affects the cells behind the eyes. LHON primarily affects males in their late teens and twenties. It moves quickly, causing irreversible vision loss and blindness.

In 2016, with funding from the Mito Foundation, Dr Wong turned skin cells from LHON patients into stem cells, which can be reprogrammed into any cell in the human body. His team then reprogrammed them into retinal ganglion cells, which made it possible to study cells of individual LHON patients non-invasively; a welcome alternative to obtaining eye tissue, which is extremely difficult.

Recent studies have shown retinal cells may have the potential to regenerate into retinal ganglion cells. Dr Wong’s team now needs to test this theory in the lab.
This cutting-edge gene therapy has the potential to rescue the eyesight of every day Aussies and fellow mito community members. If we pull together now, he can test this promising new gene therapy.

💚 Please donate to make this research possible before 30 June.