Project title: Glaucoma Progression: Transforming the detection and prediction of progression

Primary Supervisor: Associate Professor Zhichao Wu

Email: wu.z@unimelb.edu.au

Suitable for: PhD

One in three people with glaucoma, a progressive optic neuropathy, become blind in at least one eye within 20 years of diagnosis. A key contributor to this is our difficulty in being able to predict who is at the greatest risk of vision loss, and in detecting disease progression within a short timeframe. Therefore, better tools to address these challenges are urgently needed to help us prevent irreversible vision loss in glaucoma.

State-of-the-art retinal imaging techniques now enables near-cellular visualisation of neuronal degeneration and potential changes to the cellular structures indicative of cell injury and stress. These techniques show promise for transforming our ability to detect and predict progressive glaucomatous damage. Projects are therefore available to examine such novel imaging data that are being collected as part of prospective studies at CERA.