Research Interest

Loss of sight remains one of society's greatest fears. Yet each week five people become blind in Ireland, despite 75-80% of blindness being preventable. Over 224,000 Irish people and 40 million people worldwide are affected by severe vision loss and these numbers continue to grow as the population ages. The costs to society are large and growing with 2.1 million healthy days lost per annum in Ireland alone, as a consequence of vision impairment and blindness. The total economic cost in the ROI is estimated to have been over €2 billion in 2010. The Irish Government has committed itself to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness objectives of Vision 2020: The Right to Sight.

Cathedral Eye Research Foundation also pays for a PhD student to undertake research on cataract surgery outcomes. Cataract surgery to remove the old cloudy lens is the most common surgery performed in the UK with more than 300,000 procedures performed each year.

A number of ongoing projects are detailed below:

• Evidence based clinical research
• Mutation Identification for Stratification of eye disease
• Personalised Medicine Treatment for Blinding Eye Disease
• The Ageing and Cataractous Eye