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Medicine & Health Optometry & Vision Science

Research news

Scientist using microscope in laboratory

We had another very successful and productive year for research at UNSW School of Optometry & Vision Science (SOVS).

SOVS recruited Dr. Daisy Shu as a Scientia Senior Lecturer during 2023. Daisy is an alumnus (class of 2012), and her research explores the role of mitochondria and metabolism in retinal eye diseases including age-related macular degeneration and proliferative vitreoretinopathy.

We also have new visiting fellows/scientists/clinicians and many of these have their profiles up on our website. We have also had continued success and engagement with industry, who are sponsoring research and clinical trials in the school for many groups. The Eye Research Group recently evaluated two novel treatments, which are currently under development, to address discomfort in contact lens wearers.

Associate Professor Michele Madigan and PhD candidate Stanley Wu published important research with colleagues from UNSW Sydney, Save Sight Institute and Ophthalmology, The University of Sydney and others. The paper is entitled “The multifunctional human ocular melanocortin system” and was published in the journal “Progress in Retinal and Eye Research” (doi:). This is the top performing eye journal, and the paper is in the Top 1 percentile of papers in 2023. We had an additional 66 journal papers in the top 10 percentile in 2023.

Two of our high performing PhD candidates’ research projects were featured in the mainstream news: Suki Jaiswal was interviewed by CBS News on her research on bush fire smoke effect on the ocular surface; and Binod Rayamajhee’s research with UTS and NSW Dept of Environment that found 38% of NSW central coast lagoons harbour sight threatening acanthamoeba was featured on ABC radio.
Dr Daisy Shu
Ms Sukanya Jaiswal
Dr Stanley Wu
Mr Binod Rayamajhee

Grants

We performed particularly well in category 3 grants in 2023. These are grants that connect our academic researchers to industry. Just to mention a few of the grants awarded in 2023….

Dr Jackie Tan and Prof Willcox were awarded collaborative grants from international and national industries.

Ms Rehana Khan, Mr Hari Peguda were awarded industry internships and Dr Partharsarathi Kalaiselvan was awarded an industry fellowship.

Dr Lisa Nivison-Smith, Dr Angelica Ly and Dr Matt Trinh were awarded grants from the Future Vision Foundation.

Publications

We published a grand total of 252 papers for 2023 that went into the UNSW Research Output System. Below is a selection of papers that were published in 2023:

  1. Stapleton, F. (2023). The epidemiology of infectious keratitis. Ocular Surface, 28, 351-363. doi:
  2. Chang, K. Y. J., Angell, B., Rogers, K., Jan, S., & Keay, L. (2023). Cost–benefit analysis of orientation and mobility programs for adults with vision disability: a contingent valuation study. Disability and Rehabilitation, 45(5), 857-865. doi:
  3. Kalaiselvan, P., Yasir, M., Vijay, A. K., Willcox, M. D. P., & Tummanapalli, S. (2023). Longevity of hand sanitisers on fingers. Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 106(4), 436-442. doi:
  4. Chidi-Egboka, N. C., Jalbert, I., & Golebiowski, B. (2023). Smartphone gaming induces dry eye symptoms and reduces blinking in school-aged children. Eye (Basingstoke), 37(7), 1342-1349. doi:
  5. Carnt, N., Minassian, D. C., & Dart, J. K. G. (2023). Acanthamoeba Keratitis Risk Factors for Daily Wear Contact Lens Users: A Case–Control Study. Ophthalmology, 130(1), 48-55. doi:
  6. Kandel, H., Pesudovs, K., Nguyen, V., Chen, J. Y., Poon, A., Mills, R., & Watson, S. L. (2023). Patient-Reported Outcomes in Keratoconus: A Save Sight Keratoconus Registry Study. Cornea, 42(5), 590-597. doi:10.1097/ICO.0000000000003119
  7. Kiyokawa, H., Nagai, T., Yamauchi, Y., & Kim, J. (2023). The perception of translucency from surface gloss. Vision Research, 205. doi:
  8. Tong, J., Phu, J., Alonso-Caneiro, D., Khuu, S. K., & Kalloniatis, M. (2023). High sampling resolution optical coherence tomography reveals potential concurrent reductions in ganglion cell-inner plexiform and inner nuclear layer thickness but not in outer retinal thickness in glaucoma. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 43(1), 46-63. doi:
  9. Ho, S., Ly, A., Ohno-Matsui, K., Kalloniatis, M., & Doig, G. S. (2023). Diagnostic accuracy of OCTA and OCT for myopic choroidal neovascularisation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eye (Basingstoke), 37(1), 21-29. doi:
  10. Asiedu, K., Markoulli, M., Tummanapalli, S. S., Chiang, J. C. B., Alotaibi, S., Wang, L. L., . . . Krishnan, A. V. (2023). Impact of Chronic Kidney Disease on Corneal Neuroimmune Features in Type 2 Diabetes. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 12(1). doi:
  11. McMonnies, C. W. (2023). Why are soft contact lens wear discontinuation rates still too high?. Expert Review of Ophthalmology, 18(1), 11-18. doi:
  12. Mani, R., Asper, L., Arunachalam, V., & Khuu, S. (2023). The impact of traumatic brain injury on inhibitory control processes assessed using a delayed antisaccade task. Neuroscience Letters. doi:
  13. Jia, T., Tilia, D., Papas, E., Stapleton, F., Zhen, Y., Conrad, F., & Tan, J. (2023). Comparison of vision performance of spectacles prescribed to 0.05D versus 0.25D steps. Clinical and Experimental Optometry. Doi: 10.1080/08164622.2023.2202305

Professor Mark Willcox

Director of Research