Sam Walker

Sam Walker is 25 years old and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.  He works for Ernst & Young LLP as an Auditor. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2016 with his Masters of Science in Accounting. Most of his free time is spent on a golf course or on a boat. Sam is also a die hard Michigan State Football and Basketball fan and has not missed a home football game in 7 years.

Sam has a condition known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) which limits his peripheral vision and his vision in dim light.  There are more than 80 different genes that cause RP and Sam’s gene TRNT1 is one of the rarest.  In fact, when Sam was first seen at the University of Iowa at age 18, TRNT1 was not yet known to cause RP.  The Howard Hughes Medical Institute made a short movie about the discovery of Sam’s gene which you can view by clicking here.

 

Sam and his family host a fundraising golf tournament in western Michigan each year (Sam’s Scramble for Sight) which has raised nearly 3 million dollars for vision research.  You can read more about that event at:

https://scrambleforsight.com