Creation of the Caroline Durand Chair in Cellular Therapy for Eye Diseases

The product of a fruitful collaboration between the HMR Foundation, the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine, the Caroline Durand Foundation and the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, the Caroline Durand Chair in Cellular Therapy for Eye Diseases was launched on September 12, 2017. In total, the value of the chair is $5M and $4.25M of the capital has been donated by the Caroline Durand Foundation with another $750,000 provided by the HMR Foundation.

The HMR is the only hospital in Canada to possess the expertise and the infrastructure to explore the possibilities offered by the prodigious cellular therapy and stem cells to “repair” eyes.

The directors of the Caroline Durand Foundation felt especially compelled by the numerous clinical applications offered by cellular therapy for a large number of ocular diseases. The holder of the chair, Doctor May Griffith, has unparalleled expertise in cellular therapy and is recognized worldwide for her fundamental research in ophthalmology. She has put forward a unique and extremely promising technique as part of her clinical applications, making these innovative treatments available to a greater number of patients. The work done by her team of investigators focuses on the discovery of the innumerable regenerative properties of stem cells produced by bone marrow and their ability to impact healing of eye diseases, namely diseases of the retina, glaucoma and other inflammatory diseases.