GENETICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS OF GLAUCOMA & MYOPIA
Professor David Mackey AO,
Professor of Ophthalmology
The Lions Eye Institute,
University of Western Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Western Australia | February 2026
Professor David Mackey, AO is a clinician, scientist and academic. He is Professor of Ophthalmology at UWA and was the Lions Eye Institute’s Managing Director from 2009 until 2018.
A University of Tasmania medical graduate, Professor Mackey completed his ophthalmology training at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne. After an MD thesis on Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy at the University of Melbourne, he completed fellowships in the US and UK in genetic eye diseases.
A renowned international researcher on the genetics of eye disease, Professor Mackey leads the Lions Eye Institute’s Genetics and Epidemiology research group, which pursues multiple projects aimed at understanding how genes and environment interact to influence an individual’s risk of eye disease.
Professor Mackey collaborates with researchers worldwide. He is a lead investigator in the International Glaucoma Genetics Consortium (IGCC) and the Consortium for Refractive Error and Myopia (CREAM). In the 1990s he coordinated an international consortium across eight countries to establish the frequency of Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) mutations.
In Australia, he initiated the Glaucoma Inheritance Study in Tasmania – creating one of the largest glaucoma biobanks in the world and contributing to the discovery of more than a dozen genes associated with Mendelian genetic eye disease.
The Twins Eye Study in Tasmania and Brisbane, the Norfolk Island Eye Study, the eye component of the WA Pregnancy (Raine) Cohort, Busselton Healthy Aging Study are his other major projects.
Professor Mackey’s original research, over more than 30 years into the genetics of glaucoma and in the fields of optic atrophy and congenital cataract, has received constant professional accolades, attracted ongoing research funding and led to his publication of more than 400 peer-reviewed papers.
In 2019, he was made an Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to medicine, and to medical education, in the field of ophthalmology, as a clinician-scientist and academic”.
Source: Lions Eye Institute website
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7914-4709
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Genomics and rationally targeted therapies in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia
Prof Deborah White’s research focus is genomics and rationally targeted therapies in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) and Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) and she holds peer reviewed grants from: The William Lawrence and Blanche Hughes Foundation and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (USA), the NHMRC, the Leukaemia Foundation Australia (LFA), Channel 7, Cancer Australia, Tour de Cure and the Cancer Council SA (CCSA). Professor White has presented more than 170 papers at scientific meetings, and authored more than 100 scientific publications as well as being an inventor on several international patents.
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Pathogenicity, modelling & treatment of inherited retinal Stargardt disease
Dr Di Huang is a Research Associate at the Lions Eye Institute (LEI), working with A/Professor Fred Chen and Dr Sam McLenachan. Her research focuses on developing a robust platform of retinal pigment epithelium cells and retinal organoids derived from patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells to model inherited retinal diseases, particularly Stargardt disease (STGD1).
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Novel silk-based biomaterials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
Dr Jelena Rnjak-Kovacina is a Scientia Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow leading a multidisciplinary group at the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, UNSW Sydney in Australia.
Her research interests are at the interface of biology and engineering, focusing on the development of biomimetic materials that direct cellular interactions for enhanced vascularisation and for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. In particular, she develops novel silk-based biomaterials and investigates how biomaterial properties translate to biological outcomes.
