MEC ImpactReport 2024 flipBook v1.0 single pages - Flipbook - Page 14
Research
Developing our understanding of short-sightedness
Professor Omar Mahroo,
professor of retinal
Retinal photoreceptor cells (in yellow) as seen in
neuroscience at the UCL
a retinal organoid. Image courtesy of Sara Toros
Institute of Ophthalmology
and Dr Matteo Rizzi.
and consultant
ophthalmologist at Moorfields,
was granted a PhD studentship
to explore whether ERGs
could help us understand both
normal and abnormal retinal
function.
PhD student Xiaofan Jiang
discovered that one of the
common genetic risk factors
most strongly associated with
short-sightedness changes the
response to light, and that this
was published in ‘Proceedings
electrical signals generated
could play a role in the eye
of the National Academy of
by nerve cells in the retina in
changing shape. Their work
Sciences of the USA’.
This study is a step forward in understanding what causes short-sightedness (myopia)
to develop.
Professor Omar Mahroo
What next?
This is the first discovery of how a common genetic myopia risk factor alters the retina.
It’s an important step in understanding how myopia develops, and highlights how the
ERG can be used in new ways to answer important questions related to vision. Building
on this work, Professor Mahroo’s team are now looking at ERGs to explore other
genetic risk factors for myopia, and are developing patient-friendly testing protocols
using portable devices that could increase accessibility to ERGs.
This work will help further our understanding of myopia, allowing the development of
interventions that could help prevent it, and of other eye diseases that affect the retina
- such as age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal disease, which are
two of the biggest causes of blindness in the UK.
Xiaofan Jiang has been significantly recognised for her work:
› won the Eberhard Dodt Memorial Award for her presentation at the annual meeting of the
International Society for the Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision in 2022.
› won the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers Master’s Medal in 2022 for the paper on myopia.
› invited to speak at the national ‘100% Optical’ meeting in London in 2023.
