The Foundation is a founding investor in Atsena.

Damon Lembi talks to host Ben Shaberman about his journey as a college baseball star, father, and CEO of Learnit (a live learning platform), and how the diagnosis of an inherited retinal disease informs his leadership style, personal growth, and relationships. Damon is also a best-selling author and host of the Learn-It-All podcast.

The company is also planning to conduct the clinical trial at sites in the EU.

Dr. Sheldon Rowan, a professor and researcher at Tufts University, talks to host Ben Shaberman about the impact of the glycemic index, microbiome, and diet on the development of age-related macular degeneration and optimization of overall retinal health. Dr. Rowan will also discuss his grant from the Foundation and the Free Family for studying diet and AMD risk. The grant is also enabling Dr. Rowan to evaluate an FDA-approved drug and an emerging gene therapy as potential AMD preventions.

The company has also launched a natural history study of patients to inform the planned clinical trial.

Known as ultevursen, the USH2A RNA therapy was licensed from ProQR.

Bob Bell, PhD, chief scientific officer at Ascidian Therapeutics, talks with host Ben Shaberman about STELLAR, the company's Phase 1/2 clinical trial for its emerging RNA-rewriting therapy for Stargardt disease (ABCA4 mutations). Dr. Bell also provides overviews of Stargardt disease, the role of RNA in cells, and the advantages of RNA re-writing over other genetic treatment approaches. Learn more about the clinical trial at STELLAR (https://stellarstargardttrial.com/). Learn more about the prescreening study for STELLAR at PRESCREEN (https://stellarstargardttrial.com/#participation-criteria).

When the Lemay-Pelletier family from Montreal learned that three of their four children were losing vision from retinitis pigmentosa, they made the bold decision to spend 15 months traveling the world to give their kids as many visual memories as possible. Podcast host Ben Shaberman talks to the family about their many incredible adventures and the National Geographic documentary (to stream on Disney+ in late 2024) that beautifully captured the journey.

The companies are planning a Phase 3 clinical trial for the promising gene therapy.

The Foundation funded Dr. David Gamm for development of the induced pluripotent stem cell approach to be used in the trial.