OCULAR DISEASE AND EARLY ONSET MYOPIA
Dr Jessica Mountford
Brian King Fellow &
Head of Functional Molecular Vision Group
Lions Eye Institute, Western Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Western Australia | November 2024
Dr Jessica Mountford received her highly ranked PhD from Monash University, Melbourne, in 2012, in the field of biochemistry and clinical haematology. Her work investigating novel ways to prevent thrombosis, a leading cause of heart attack and stroke, led to a first author publication in Nature Communications.
Following this, Dr Mountford relocated to Perth and went on to complete two post-doctoral appointments at the University of Western Australia, where she began research on the comparative evolution of visual and non-visual opsin across species of vertebrate, from the primitive lamprey to human.
During this period Dr Mountford began researching novel genetic variants associated with myopia development. With Adjunct Research Fellow appointments held at La Trobe University in Melbourne, and the University of Western Australia, Dr Mountford is currently the 6th Brian King Fellow and the Head of the Functional Molecular Vision Group at the Lions Eye Institute in Perth where she researches both the genetic and environmental factors involved in the development of early-onset myopia.
Dr Mountford has successfully established Western Australia’s first and only ocular genetic screening platform using zebrafish and utilises this model to help elucidate some of the complex gene-environment interactions responsible for the development of myopia.
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Clinical guidelines for diagnostics and early intervention in Primary Aldosteronism
Primary Aldosteronism (PA), or Conn Syndrome, is the most commonly under-diagnosed cause of high blood pressure affecting millions of people. Associate Professor Jun Yang’s goal is to facilitate the diagnosis of every case of PA and make treatment widely available to all communities including the disadvantaged.
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Health and economic burden of interstitial lung diseases
Dr Cox’s main research interests focus on respiratory diseases and primarily on the economic burden and economic evaluation of interventions and treatments for their management. She earned her PhD from the University of Tasmania where her doctoral research examined the health and economic burden of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in Australia, one component of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for Pulmonary Fibrosis, a national project implemented alongside the Australian IPF Registry and the Lung Foundation Australia. This research provided the first epidemiological profile and first costing estimates of the economic burden of the disease in Australia, providing essential evidence for health service reimbursement policies.
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Food and fasting periods as medicine to prevent disease
Professor Leonie Heilbronn is based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), where she leads the Obesity and Metabolism laboratory. Her research is at the interface between basic and clinical science. She is internationally recognised for her work in nutritional modulation in humans and has made major contributions to our current understanding of mechanisms underlying conditions such as insulin resistance, particularly inflammation and lipid metabolism. She has also contributed significantly to current concepts of caloric restriction (CR), intermittent fasting (IF) and time restricted eating (TRE) in humans. She has published more than 110 peer reviewed papers in scientific journals and is an Associate Editor of Obesity, and Obesity Research and Clinical Practice.
