Eye disease researchers recognised for research excellence

Both Professor Robyn Guymer and Associate Professor Alex Hewitt hail from the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA), holding the positions of deputy director and head of macular research, and head of clinical genetics, respectively.Prof Guymer was awarded a NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship for the Clinical Science and Medicine category. The Elizabeth Blackburn fellowships are awarded annually to the highest ranked fale applicant in each of the biomedical, clinical and public health sectors in the NHMRC’s research fellowship sche.Prof Guymer is a clinician-researcher focusing almost exclusively on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), believed to be the leading cause of vision loss and legal blindness in Australians over 50 years of age.It was said that over the past two decades, Prof Guymer’s research had looked at all aspects of the disease, from better understanding the pathological causes and risk factors of AMD, to defining its clinical signs and severity in a living eye, to testing novel treatments for every stage of the disease.“This fellowship will enable me to continue expanding the AMD research field by collaborating with basic scientists to address underlying mechanisms of the disease and then take our research findings into the clinic,” Prof Guymer said.{{image3-a:r-w:300}}Assoc Prof Hewitt, who is also a University of Tasmania researcher, received a Research Excellence Award as the top-ranked NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship applicant.Assoc Prof Hewitt is investigating gene-based therapies for eye diseases such as glaucoma and AMD, as well as less common retinal dystrophies. The project recognised by the recent award aims to better understand the precise molecular mechanisms that lead to inherited blinding diseases, which could lead to improved screening programs and open avenues for new therapeutic intervention.“The overarching goal [of my research] is to ensure that through targeted, evidence-based intervention, the next generation of people genetically predisposed to blinding ocular diseases have a dramatically different natural history to their forebears,” Assoc Prof Hewitt explained.NHMRC Practitioner Fellowships are designed to support research that results in the translation of evidence into improved clinical practice and health policy, delivering improvents in health and healthcare to Australians.