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Supporting
World-Class
Medical Research

MEDICAL RESEARCH

The Trust’s main objective is to fund translational research which will bring benefit to patients through improved diagnosis or assisting in the development of new therapies for important clinical problems. The Trust also recognises the importance of encouraging young scientists to pursue a career in clinical research. The following grant scheme has been designed with this in mind and all areas of research are considered.

The Sir Jules Thorn Award for Biomedical Research

The Sir Jules Thorn Award for Biomedical Research
Programmes

Programmes

“The Sir Jules Thorn Award was my first major grant and it allowed me to develop a broad programme of work in ocular gene therapy that ultimately led to our first clinical trial. This was the World’s first trial of a gene therapy for retinal degeneration and we now have a programme of trials that have all resulted from the foundational support provided by The Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust. The Award allowed us to be truly ambitious and to take our novel therapies for treating blindness through to the clinic.”

- Professor Robin Ali PhD, FMedSc Professor of Human Molecular Genetics, University College London, Institute of Ophthalmology,
The first recipient of the Sir Jules Thorn Award in 2001