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I've always had an eye for beauty. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:15 | |
When you look through a lens you see things rather more clearly. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
It's a wonderful feeling. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
You do feel part of what you are seeing. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
As a photographer, light is vital in my life. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
But Belinda Wilkinson is going blind. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
It's a terrifying prospect I know about. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:38 | |
My mother spent her last precious years completely blind and in fear. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:43 | |
I witnessed her confidence and independence slipping away from her. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
And now I feel the same dread she must have felt, having | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
had two emergency operations to prevent my own sight deteriorating. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:54 | |
1.8 million people in this country suffer from failing sight, | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
and that's a huge number. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
But over the next few minutes, I'm going | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
to show what you can do to help to turn the tide. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
Like my mother, Belinda is losing her sight due to a condition | 0:01:06 | 0:01:10 | |
called age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
the leading cause of sight loss for the over-60s. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
For years Belinda was a portrait photographer, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
but the symptoms of AMD made it impossible to continue. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
Of course, the expression of the person you are photographing | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
is vital to a good photograph. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
With AMD, one of the really bad bits is the fact that you don't | 0:01:31 | 0:01:36 | |
see faces very clearly. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
It's pretty unpleasant, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:39 | |
because all your central vision will eventually go. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
One of the versions of the disease Belinda has is called dry AMD, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:47 | |
for which there is no cure. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:49 | |
I notice a deterioration, which is quite rapid, which is fairly | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
frightening, because it is robbing me of my independence, which is | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
very important in my life. So I try not to think about the future. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:02 | |
You know, I'm a realist and I do know it's a one-way ticket. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:07 | |
AMD is just one of many conditions that can lead to sight loss. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
But I hope that in the future, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
people like Belinda or my mum won't have to worry about going blind. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:21 | |
But that'll only happen | 0:02:21 | 0:02:22 | |
if we can understand the root causes of this all-too-common affliction. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
Thankfully, there is a charity | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
that's turning this hope into a reality. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
Fight for Sight is funding research in laboratories like | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
this one at UCL in London, where scientists are dedicated to finding | 0:02:35 | 0:02:39 | |
new and more effective treatments for the causes of sight loss. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:43 | |
Professor Steve Moss | 0:02:43 | 0:02:44 | |
is one of the world's leading researchers into AMD. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
He's spent his career | 0:02:48 | 0:02:49 | |
trying to understand the causes of the disease. | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
This is a really exciting time to be doing research in this area | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
because we now really have the prospect of understanding | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
what's happening at the cellular level. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
What we're trying to prevent is the attack | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
from our own proteins in our own system | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
that's taking place in the retina on the cells at the back of the eye. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
Now they know the cause of AMD, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
it's vital that research can move to the next stage, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
to discover the drugs that could cure someone like Belinda. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
But research costs an awful lot of money. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:24 | |
Over the years here at UCL, we have received | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
millions of pounds of funding from Fight for Sight. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
And without Fight for Sight's input, research into AMD | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
and other forms of eye disease would suffer enormously in the UK. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
Fight for Sight is the main UK charity dedicated to | 0:03:37 | 0:03:41 | |
raising funds for pioneering medical sight-loss research. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:45 | |
And with around 100 people across the UK starting to lose | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
their sight every day, there's never been a better time for you to help. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
Eye disease and sight loss can affect any of us | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
at any stage of life. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
One person who knows this better than most is 14-year-old Tommy. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:01 | |
He has a hereditary eye disease called choroideremia, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
which leads inevitably to complete blindness, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
and for which currently there is no cure. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
For Tommy's mum Emma, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
blindness is a shadow that has hung over the family for generations. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:19 | |
My grandad was blind - | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
he had choroideremia. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
There was parts of being a grandad | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
when you can't see your grandchildren or be able to | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
play with them in the park. You know, it was quite sad. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
When he was four, Tommy was diagnosed. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
I felt a real sense of grief for Tommy, | 0:04:33 | 0:04:39 | |
that his life would be different. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
Knowing my grandad, I didn't want that life for Tommy. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
We didn't really know what to do or... Sorry... | 0:04:46 | 0:04:51 | |
Um...you know... | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
We were just sort of lost for a bit. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
Choroideremia only affects boys. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
Tommy has begun to lose his peripheral vision | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
and over time, the disease will close in on the central | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
area of his retina, eventually destroying it. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
My eyesight will kind of degenerate and kind of get worse | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
as I get older and eventually I'll go blind. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
It became quite apparent that at the moment | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
there was nothing that could be done, there was no treatment. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:25 | |
That was really, you know, really tough for us. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
But Tommy and his family weren't about to give up. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
Emma got in touch with Fight for Sight, who inspired them | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
to raise a massive amount of money to fund a research project | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
to find a cure for choroideremia. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
Medical research is the only thing that will change Tommy's life | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
and give him the life that we all want him to have. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
The money Emma raised for Fight for Sight helped take the research | 0:05:51 | 0:05:55 | |
out of the lab and on to patients, | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
in a clinical trial being run by Professor Robert MacLaren. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
We know in choroideremia that there is a vital gene that is part of | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
the DNA which is missing and we have been able to harness the power of | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
the virus to infect cells to put the missing gene back into the cells. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:13 | |
Now, the results in the lab have been very promising and very exciting | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
and that's enabled us now to move us on to a clinical trial. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
The first stage of the trial on patients | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
is producing startling results. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
And if the next stage is successful too, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
then doctors will be able to offer a cure to Tommy in a few years, | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
saving him and many other children from going blind. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
And the gene therapy technique the team have perfected | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
could revolutionise the treatment of other diseases, too. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
This is a very exciting time indeed - | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
there are many other genetic diseases that could be treated | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
through very similar clinical trials, and I think the only limiting factor | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
at the moment is the amount | 0:06:50 | 0:06:51 | |
of funding we can raise to get them started. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
Each vital stage of research costs a lot of money. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:57 | |
But for families living with inherited sight-loss conditions, | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
medical breakthroughs offer the only real hope. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
And that's why I'm appealing for your help, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
on behalf of Fight for Sight. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
You can help people when they have a problem, but it doesn't cure them. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:13 | |
Research is the only way forward. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
'Fight for Sight are just an amazing charity and without them | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
'medical research would not be where it is today. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
'Tommy's prospects now for the future are looking much, much brighter.' | 0:07:24 | 0:07:29 | |
For it actually to come to the day when Tommy's having it done, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:32 | |
it will be the best day ever. I just can't wait. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
Fight for Sight is currently funding over 100 cutting-edge | 0:07:36 | 0:07:40 | |
research projects for age-related and hereditary eye conditions | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
that could save the vision of people like Tommy and Belinda. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
And you can help make sure that they succeed. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
So please dig deep and donate now. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
Please go to the website... | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
If you haven't got internet access, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
please call... | 0:08:01 | 0:08:03 | |
If you can't get through | 0:08:06 | 0:08:07 | |
the first time, please keep trying. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
Telephone calls are free | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
from most landlines. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:12 | |
Some networks and mobile operators | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
will charge for these calls. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:16 | |
Texts cost £10 plus your standard | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
network message charge, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:25 | |
and the whole £10 | 0:08:25 | 0:08:27 | |
goes to Fight for Sight. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:28 | |
Full terms and conditions | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
can be found at bbc.co.uk/lifeline | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
Or if you'd like to post a donation, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
please make your cheque payable | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
to Fight for Sight and send it to | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
Freepost BBC Lifeline Appeal, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
writing "Fight for Sight" | 0:08:42 | 0:08:44 | |
on the back of the envelope. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:45 | |
And if you want the charity | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
to claim Gift Aid on your donation, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
please include an e-mail | 0:08:49 | 0:08:50 | |
or postal address so that they can | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
send you a Gift Aid form. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
Thank you. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 |