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 In 2010 post graduate student, Nicole Carnt, was awarded the prestigious Ezell Fellowship by the American Optometric Foundation – a highly competitive international award supporting excellence in postgraduate research. This was not the only award for Nicole in 2010, read about her achievements and our other award winners.
Recent news this week announced Nicole has again, for the second year running, received the Cornea and Contact Lens Society of Australia research award. This makes her both the 2010 and 2011 recipient. Two of Nicole’s post graduate colleagues at the Brien Holden Vision Institute also received the CCLSA research award for 2011: Eric Wei and Kalika Bandamwar.
Nicole also received the Dallos Research Award from the British Contact Lens Association in 2010 for her research project on contact lens wearers. Nicole’s research investigates the intrinsic risks of two very different, but related factors that influence the possibility of eye infection in contact lens wearers: personality and genetics. Her burning question is – why do some people get infections while others don’t?
While infection associated with contact lens wear is rare – 4 in 10 000 (daily use), 20 in 10 000 (extended wear use) annually – the potential costs to wearers, the health system and the industry are great. Nicole’s work is part of a program of research by the Brien Holden Vision Institute to develop the safest and most comfortable contact lenses.
Nicole’s activities involve conducting surveys across Australia to see if people who have a riskier approach to life are likely to be less hygienic and take more chances with eye health. She has also collected DNA samples from over 300 wearers, 80 of whom had eye infections. The idea being to see if small mutations in some of the genes associated with defence and inflammation in the eye might have contributed to the susceptibility and severity of the infections. This kind of eye research has great potential for opening the pathways to understanding the factors that really influence eye disease.
Awards
In 2010 the Brien Holden Vision Institute was the recipient of awards from both Australian and international award committees. Similarly awards were also given to the humanitarian organisation Professor Brien Holden co-founded in 1998 – the International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE), which collaborates closely with the Brien Holden Vision Institute.
2010 awards include: Ezell Fellowships by the American Optometric Foundation; J. Lloyd Hewett Award for Excellence in Optometry; Essilor Award for Outstanding International Contributions to Optometry awarded by the American Academy of Optometry; Honorary Doctorate by the University of Montreal under the recommendation of the School of Optometry (École d’optométrie, Université de Montréal); Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award for Africa, at the regional World Economic Forum in Tanzania; Dallos Research Award by the British Contact Lens Association.
Grants
In 2010 the Brien Holden Vision Institute received grant funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for two cutting edge research projects that will run for the next three years: One to potentially advance the diagnostic techniques for the early detection of prostate cancer (proteomic study of urine to discover novel biomarkers for human prostate cancer); and the other to reduce the rates of infection that can occur with biomedical devices like contact lenses and other implant devices such as replacement organs and joints (investigate the potential use of melimine as an antimicrobial biomaterial coating).
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