There’s no denying that collaboration is key to every aspect of the Foundation’s work – whether it’s researchers sharing their findings among peers to advance treatments, volunteers banding together to fundraise for events or venture capitalists investing  in start-up companies developing vision-saving treatments. And my new role, as board secretary for the National Alliance for Eye and Vision Research, or NAEVR, is no exception.

A coalition of more than 50 like-minded professional groups, companies and disease foundations like FFB, NAEVR’s members have one common goal: to advocate for eye and vision research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Eye Institute (NEI) and other federal research entities.

FFB has long been a part of NAEVR’s effort, strongly represented for many years by our own board president, Ed Gollob, whom I’d like to thank for his service. Ed recently passed the NAEVR torch on to me, and at a very critical time for vision research.

The U.S. Congress’ “sequestration” reduced the NIH’s budget by 5.1 percent, or $1.6 billion, which translates to a loss of $36 million for NEI. That means roughly 90 new research grants will not be funded if Congress doesn’t come up with an alternative plan.

The idea that one or more of those grants could help develop treatments for retinal diseases makes Congress’ inaction unacceptable. So NAEVR’s ongoing advocacy efforts are more important than ever, and the Foundation’s involvement in steering that ship stands to benefit our retinal disease community. The bottom line: The more federal money being directed to NIH, NEI and other agencies contributing to medical research, the better for our end goal of eradicating blindness.

Yet again, I find myself coming back to collaboration. We at FFB are working hard to raise funds and invest them in promising lab studies, early-stage translational research and clinical trials. But we can’t do it alone. NIH is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, so it’s a vital collaborator in advancing sight-saving treatments from bench to bedside.

NAEVR recently announced its NIH and NEI funding recommendations for the government’s fiscal year 2014, which begins in October. It called for a 4.5 percent increase in the NIH’s budget, which would bring it to $32 billion total and $730 million for the NEI. I look forward to being involved with this push as well as NAEVR’s effort to educate Congress through briefings and Capitol Hill testimony.

It’s our job to raise the alarm about the negative impact of sequestration. Not only does it limit funding of cutting-edge vision research; it also costs people jobs and the nation billions of dollars in economic output in the life sciences sector.

The Foundation’s collaborative work with NAEVR and other organizations is moving the needle toward a day when every man, woman and child diagnosed with a retinal disease will have sight-saving treatment options available to them.