Martine Vanderspuy spent much of her early life living abroad before settling in Australia, where she finished school in Woonona and went on to study graphic design. Her creative career began in advertising in Canada and Australia, eventually leading her to establish her own award-winning design agency.
In 2015 she opened Martine Gallery, a space that became both an artistic home and a platform for raising awareness of mitochondrial disease.
Her dedication to this cause is deeply personal. Martine’s youngest son, Tom, was born with mitochondrial disease, a condition that deprives the body’s cells of energy and can lead to organ failure.
When he was diagnosed at just two years old, doctors did not expect him to survive. Over the years he underwent more than fifty operations, yet he grew into a healthy young man who has consistently overcome the odds.
At four years old, the condition began affecting Tom’s eyes. Tests revealed he had only ten percent retinal function remaining, and Martine was told that blindness was inevitable.
Refusing to accept that no solution existed, she began researching relentlessly, contacting researchers across the world from Russia to America and even NASA.
Her search led her to studies showing the benefits of LED therapy on mice with similar retinal degeneration. With that knowledge, she raised funds to build a custom LED light bed with 2,500 diodes across five spectrums. Tom used it daily for two years, and follow-up tests revealed ninety-eight percent retinal function.
The improvement astonished everyone involved.
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