Charity announces new funding for glaucoma research

A University of Manchester researcher has been awarded more than £150,000 by a leading eye-research charity to examine the genetic causes of glaucoma - one of the chief causes of preventable blindness in the UK. Fight for Sight has announced it will give £151,442 to support the research of Dr Forbes Manson, a lecturer in Ophthalmology based in the School of Biomedicine. Glaucoma refers to a range of eye conditions which cause damage to the optic nerve and are often associated with raised pressure in the eye. It affects one in 50 people over the age of 40 in the UK and yet half of people affected are unaware of their condition. Dr Manson's research is concerned with the causes of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) - one of the most common forms of the condition. In POAG, increased pressure causes damage to the cells at the back of the eye often leading to permanent blindness. Dr Manson's research aims to identify one of the genes that causes POAG.