The world’s first worldwide hub for vision science, a analysis collaboration between the University of Waterloo and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), has had its funding prolonged by to 2030.
The mission of the InnoHK Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR) is to generate applied sciences that stop, detect, deal with and mitigate vision loss. Its purpose isn’t solely to conduct world-leading vision science analysis but additionally to discover alternatives for translating improvements into sensible options that improve eye well being.
This sort of centered worldwide collaboration permits researchers to share various views, unlocking new insights and driving innovation. Located in Hong Kong’s Science and Technology Park, CEVR was launched in 2021 with an preliminary five-year funding dedication from the InnoHK initiative of the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
CEVR’s CEO and scientific director is Dr. Ben Thompson, a Waterloo Faculty of Science professor and director of the School of Optometry and Vision Science. The COO and deputy scientific director is Prof. Allen Cheong, who can also be affiliate head of PolyU’s School of Optometry.
“We are delighted to have CEVR’s funding extended for another five years,” Thompson says. “CEVR has already come a long way in advancing its projects and bringing them to market. We have launched companies, won innovation awards and secured early customers. This new funding will allow our companies and technologies to mature and for our research to be brought into use in clinics, at companies and perhaps in patients’ homes.”
“CEVR is working hard to improve eye and vision health through research creativity, collaboration and market solutions,” Cheong says. “We believe the centre will ultimately be self-sustaining, because with an aging population, there is enormous need for the technologies we are developing to help people see as well as possible.”
CEVR groups have received a number of medals on the Asia Exhibition of Innovations and Inventions and the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva. Other honours embody a China Association of Inventions award and a Lucian Blaga University award for scientific creativity and originality.
Each CEVR undertaking has co-principal investigators from Waterloo and PolyU in addition to collaborators from a variety of fields. An preliminary 25 initiatives have been whittled down to 16 focuing efforts on these with the best well being impression and market potential.
Projects embody an “eye on a chip” preclinical testing platform that replicates the complexity of the attention’s mobile surroundings and augmented actuality software program for good glasses or headsets to assist folks with vision impairment navigate their environments independently.
Other developments embody anti-myopia screens that make display time safer for youngsters’s growing vision and a biomimetic drug supply platform that makes use of pure immune cell membrane supplies to goal and ship medicine straight to websites within the retina.
To be taught extra, go to CEVR’s website.