The AEEC was built up to document the prevalence and incidence of eye diseases in Asia, to provide a ‘platform’ for international collaborations in Asia and worldwide, and to build capacity in ocular epidemiology in Asian and translate expertise to young investigators.

Light is a key driver of human health and wellbeing. Light exposure at the wrong biological time of day can disrupt our inner clock and lead to sleep loss, jeopardizing our physical and mental health and well-being. Additionally, light is important for normal development of the eye, with low levels of light exposure being associated with myopia. With increasing knowledge from basic laboratory findings on the wide-reaching effects of light exposure on human health and well-being, our NETIAS CAT group will apply this knowledge to the real world, guiding policymakers and other stakeholders.

The ENLIGHT checklist and guidelines will ensure a comprehensive and standardized reporting of light characteristics across research using light as intervention. ENLIGHT will be developed in accordance with the EQUATOR toolkit for developing a reporting guideline through a modified Delphi consensus process consisting of 1) a pre-round where the project team went through a literature review, identifies a set of potential reporting-related items and a group of participants with established track record in light-based interventions; 2) four feedback rounds (three questionnaire-based and one face to face discussion) detailed in the procedure section below.

https://lightcat.group/enlight

Beyond vision, light can affect a variety of physiological functions in mammals including humans. The goal of this collaborative project is to better understand the dynamics of non-visual photoreception in young and older individuals through investigating non-visual responses to light such as the pupillary light reflex and melatonin suppression.

Beyond vision, light can affect a variety of physiological functions in mammals including humans. The goal of this collaborative project is to better understand the impact of light on non-visual responses in children and adolescents.

Myopia is a highly prevalent ocular condition that has reached epidemic magnitudes in several parts of Asia. Without adequate interventions, myopia is projected to affect about 50% of the world population by 2050. The objective of this project is to better understand the impact of myopia and light-therapy for myopia on ocular metabolomics profiles in different animal models.

This project has two objectives: 1/ to develop novel strategies to quantify the transmittance of the ocular crystalline lens in vivo and 2/ to evaluate the impact of lens yellowing on non-visual responses to light.

Optogenetics utilizes visible light to regulate biological functions in millisecond spatio-temporal resolution. It has entered clinical trials as therapeutic for Retinitis Pigmentosa, while in the brain is being explored in deep-brain stimulation for neurodegenerative diseases. Existing optogenetics is limited to superficial depth due to the limited penetration of visible light across tissue. Our lab is pioneering the work of tether-free and flexible deep tissue light delivery in collaboration with Prof. Yong Zhang (City University Hong Kong) and Prof. Akihiro Yamanaka (China Institute for Brain Research), to develop our wireless optogenetics capability in the eye and brain.