WHEATFIELD — The Wheatfield Lions Club has a simple motto: We serve.
On Thursday night, the club not only served up steak dinners for its members and those of other local service clubs, they also served up a generous donation to a SUNY Buffalo Medical School professor engaged in cutting-edge research into the causes of blindness and potential treatments.
The club presented a $500 check to Dr. Michael Farkas, an associate professor of ophthalmology, biochemistry and neuroscience, whose lab focuses on “understanding basic biological phenomena that lead to vision loss and developing novel therapies for all types of vision loss.”
“When I started, 15 years ago, there were a few genes that were known to cause vision loss, and no therapies,” Farkas said. “Now there are 300 genes (known to cause vision loss) and only one treatment.”
Farkas said that available treatment costs $425,000 per eye and is not yet 100% successful.
“I believe therapy should be affordable for everyone,” Farkas said, “And with no side effects.”
Work being done by Frakas and other researchers is yielding results. He said there are currently 10 clinical trials underway on promising new therapies.
But Farkas cautioned that the research is “a slow process”, making support from groups like the Lions critical.
“Science right now is not in a great place,” he said. It helps a ton having a group (like the Lions). This is grassroots support for what we do. We really need the support of the community.”
Walt Garrow, president of the Wheatfield Lions, said the group is inspired by a 1925 invocation from Helen Keller.
“My hope is that you can be the knights for the blind in the crusade against blindness,” Keller said.
And today, the Lions’ mission has also expanded into support for diabetes research and pediatric cancer, as well as hunger, environmental, humanitarian and youth causes.