We had another very successful and productive year for research at the School.
The School recruited Dr Angelica Ly who brings her research skills and knowledge of the back of the eye. Dr Peter Wagner, a PhD student of ours, joined the Sensory Process Research Laboratory (led by Associate Professor Juno Kim and Associate Professor Sieu Khuu). His research aims to create immersive devices for improving 'extreme' virtual reality. Associate Professor Nicole Carnt published important research with colleagues from the University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital showing that people who wore reusable soft contact lenses – i.e. disinfected them overnight – had just about four times the risk of developing keratitis caused by Acanthamoeba compared to people who wore daily disposable lenses.
We are also delighted to announce that several of our scientists and clinicians have been named in the top 2% of scientists in the field of Ophthalmology and Optometry in the latest study by Stanford University (https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/4). These eminent scientists are, in order, Professor Willcox, Professor Konrad Pesudovs, the late Professor Brien Holden, Scientia Professor Fiona Stapleton, Emeritus Professor Eric Papas, and Emeritus Professor Helen Swarbrick. Also on the list were our visiting academics: Professor Michael Kalloniatis, Professor Charles McMonnies, Professor Serge Resnikoff, Professor Alison McDermott, Dr Murat Dogru, Professor Robert Augusteyn, Professor Phillip Morgan and Professor Lyndon Jones. Congratulations to everyone on their research successes.
Grants
We performed well in every category of grant funding in 2022 – Category 1 (NHMRC, ARC grants), Category 2 (Other Public Sector Research Income) and Category 3 (private sector, philanthropic and international sources). Just to mention a couple of research groups….the Eye Research Group (https://www.unsw.edu.au/medicine-health/our-schools/optometry/research-impact/research-groups/eye-research-group) continued to secure funding for clinical trials. We formed a new research group Testing And Development of new antimicrobials Overcoming Anti-biotic Resistance - TADOAR (https://www.unsw.edu.au/medicine-health/our-schools/optometry/research-impact/research-groups/testing-and-developing-new-antimicrobials-overcoming-antimicrobial-resistance-tadoar). This group secured industry and government funding in 2022. TADOAR tackles the global problem of antimicrobial resistance which costs the Australian government millions of $ per year.
Some of the grants awarded to members of SOVS in 2022 were:
Two Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry (REDI) fellowships, one to Dr Muhammad Yasir and the other to Dr Rajesh Kuppusamy. These are designed to integrate researchers with industry.
An ARC Discovery project to Associate Professor Juno Kim, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Wollongong, to study how to reduce sickness in head-mounted displays for VR users.
An MRFF COVID-19 Treatment Access and Public Health Activities grant was awarded to Professor Willcox, in collaboration with Prof Raina MacIntyre and others, to study aerosol transmission of coronaviruses.
An NHMRC ideas grant to Professor Michael Kalloniatis, in collaboration with others at UNSW and the University of Technology Sydney, to detect referable glaucoma using artificial intelligence.
Publications
We published a grand total of 260 papers for 2022 that went into the UNSW Research Output System. Here is a selection of papers that were published as Open Access:
Efron, N., Morgan, P. B., Nichols, J. J., Walsh, K., Willcox, M. D., Wolffsohn, J. S., & Jones, L. W. (2022). All soft contact lenses are not created equal. Contact Lens and Anterior Eye, 45(2). doi:10.1016/j.clae.2021.101515
Tavakoli, A., Markoulli, M., Flanagan, J., & Papas, E. (2022). The validity of point of care tear film osmometers in the diagnosis of dry eye. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 42(1), 140-148. doi:10.1111/opo.12901
Tahhan, N., Naduvilath, T. J., Woods, C., & Papas, E. (2022). Review of 20 years of soft contact lens wearer ocular physiology data. Contact Lens and Anterior Eye, 45(1). doi:10.1016/j.clae.2021.101525
Gyawali, R., Toomey, M., Stapleton, F., Keay, L., Chun Ho, K., & Jalbert, I. (2022). Multiple things going on at the same time: determinants of appropriate primary diabetic eyecare delivery. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 42(1), 71-81. doi:10.1111/opo.12912
Trinh, M., Kalloniatis, M., & Nivison-Smith, L. (2022). Should clinical automated perimetry be considered for routine functional assessment of early/intermediate age-related macular degeneration (AMD)? A systematic review of current literature. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 42(1), 161-177. doi:10.1111/opo.12919
Khadka, J., Schoneveld, P. G., & Pesudovs, K. (2022). Comparing the measurement properties of visual analogue and verbal rating scales. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 42(1), 205-217. doi:10.1111/opo.12917
Kalaiselvan, P., Dutta, D., Konda, N., Vaddavalli, P. K., Sharma, S., Stapleton, F., & Willcox, M. D. P. (2022). Biocompatibility and Comfort during Extended Wear of Mel4 Peptide-Coated Antimicrobial Contact Lenses. Antibiotics, 11(1). doi:10.3390/antibiotics11010058
Ramke, J., Evans, J. R., Habtamu, E., Mwangi, N., Silva, J. C., Swenor, B. K., . . . Büsch, F. (2022). Grand Challenges in global eye health: a global prioritisation process using Delphi method. The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 3(1), e31-e41. doi:10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00302-0
Phu, J., & Kalloniatis, M. (2022). The Frontloading Fields Study: The Impact of False Positives and Seeding Point Errors on Visual Field Reliability When Using SITA-Faster. Translational Vision Science and Technology, 11(2). doi:10.1167/tvst.11.2.20
Akter, N., Fletcher, J., Perry, S., Simunovic, M. P., Briggs, N., & Roy, M. (2022). Glaucoma diagnosis using multi-feature analysis and a deep learning technique. Scientific Reports, 12(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-022-12147-y
Professor Mark Willcox
Director of Research