Ramón Areces Foundation in its seventeenth competition for the award of Grants for Research in Life Sciences and Matter has selected a project of the researcher Ana Mendez Zunzunegui cellular and molecular neurobiology research group of IDIBELL and the University of Barcelona, about the molecular basis of pathology of hereditary blindness within the category of rare diseases. The project will receive funding of 128,000 euros over the next three years.

The main objective of the laboratory directed Ana Mendez Zunzunegui is to understand how the photoreceptor cells of the retina respond to light, adaptive mechanisms that allow them to operate in the variable brightness of the natural world and the mechanisms that give them an extraordinary compartmentalization.

The project financed by the Ramón Areces Foundation, will study through mouse models as mutations in certain genes can lead to blindness and with this knowledge design new therapies to combat hereditary blindness as there is currently no cure for these diseases.

Ramón Areces Foundation is involved since its inception in 1976 the scientific patronage, by promoting research, contributing to the generation of human capital and dissemination of knowledge. It operates throughout the country in the areas of Life Sciences and Matter, Social Sciences and Humanities.

The Foundation’s main objectives are to contribute to a solid scientific and technological structure in Spain, that will improve the lives of people and the search for solutions to the future challenges that modern society is facing in its main orders: economic and education, mainly.

The institution also works to generate new opportunities for training young researchers, and promote exchange of ideas for the development of Science, Education and Culture.