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INTRODUCTION: The Department of Medical Technology & Physics at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital provides the Western Australian state service for carrying out visual electrophysiological testing of patients. These patients are referred by ophthalmologists for a wide range of presenting diagnoses, and many of them suffer from diseases of the retina which are the result of mutations in one or more of up to 160 different genes. Consequently the department comes into contact with a significant proportion of all of the sufferers of Inherited Retinal Disease (IRD) in Western Australia at least once in their lifetime. An IRD register for the state of Western Australia was therefore established in this department, in 1984. At its inception, and for many years following, the register contained information regarding the clinical status of each subject, their family history, and the results of electrophysiological tests carried out in the department. During the past five years this register has been expanded to include the collection and storage of DNA in the form of blood, Buccal swabs and saliva samples from affected individuals and from appropriate family members. This presentation summarises the current status of this valuable asset.