The NHMRC fellowship scheme provides support for outstanding health and medical researchers to undertake research that is of major importance in its field and of significant benefit to Australian health and medical research.

Research fellowships are highly competitive and awarded to Australian researchers with a sustained track record of significant and high quality research output who are generally in the top 10% of their field and are viewed as ‘pushing the boundaries’.

Professor Baird, a molecular geneticist and Principal Investigator who heads Ocular Genetics at CERA, leads a research team actively involved in international consortia which focuses on the identification of genes and determinants involved in several major eye diseases including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, myopia and keratoconus.

Prof Baird said he was delighted to receive the award which will commence in 2018.

“The fellowship will allow me to identify disease markers in patients who exhibit disease progression as well as offer a precision medicine approach based on the identification of individuals most likely to respond to a specific treatment or combination of treatments to allow improved outcomes for patients,” Prof Baird said.

“I would like to thank the NHMRC for its support which strongly underscores our ground breaking work in eye disease,” he said.