With Gravitation (“Zwaartekracht”), the government stimulates excellent research in the Netherlands. It is intended for scientific consortia that have the potential to become among the world’s best in their field.

Seven consortia with top scientists from various Dutch universities will receive a total of 160.5 million euros. As part of the Gravitation programme, they can conduct groundbreaking research over the next ten years.

Lifelong Vision is a collaboration between mainly AmsterdamUMC (with researchers Arthur Bergen, Camiel Boon, and Clarisa Sanchez) and RadboudUMC (with Caroline Klaver, Ronald Roepman and Rob Collins).

Blindness is considered one of the most serious disabilities worldwide. We know the causes in young and old people, but effective solutions are scarce. With our Lifelong Vision project, awarded with 22 million euros, we want to tackle the underlying causes of blindness. The ultimate goal is to achieve breakthroughs within ten years that can prevent or cure blindness in patients.

We want to investigate whether we can correct the wrong building blocks in the DNA of young people with hereditary blindness to prevent further vision loss. And for those who no longer see at all, we try to create new cells in the eye with groundbreaking technologies such as a bioprinter (a device that can print human cells, ed.). Using artificial intelligence, we can estimate which treatment is needed for whom.