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Gordon Gund was blinded by retinitis pigmentosa in 1970 at the age of 31. He has spent the 45 years since working to defeat that disease, to prevent related blindness and even to restore sight to the blind. Over $700 million later, he now hopes that “within a generation we will be able to eradicate blindness caused by retinal disease!”

In 2013, I first connected with Gordon for a Forbes piece that included a live interview we conducted then.

It is hard to imagine how one copes with the complete loss of one’s vision. Gordon partnered with his wife. He says, “After coming to terms with how our lives would be altered by the disease, my wife and I committed ourselves to a comprehensive research effort that would make something positive for others out of our own difficult experiences.”

“When I was diagnosed with RP almost 50 years ago very little was known about the retina. There was very little research and no evidence-based treatments for retinal disease,” he adds.

Gordon continues, “We recognized that first building a critical mass of sound scientific knowledge about the retina and retinal diseases was essential to finding treatments and cures. That year we teamed with a number of other families affected by retinal disease to create the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation, now called the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Our collective dream was to drive the research that would find treatments and cures for all retinal degenerative diseases.”

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/29EbS4t.

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