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.
-
Exercise program for the prevention of osteoporotic fracture
Dr Beck is an international leader in the effects of mechanical loading on bone health. Dr Beck graduated from The University of Queensland (BHMS[Ed]) and the University of Oregon (MSc and PhD) and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Stanford University School of Medicine (California, USA.) She is a Professor of Exercise Science at Griffith University Gold Coast campus, where she has led the Bone Densitometry Research Laboratory since 2004.
-
Dr Nischal Sahai
RESEARCH IN DEVICE TRIALS, VACCINE STUDIES, ORAL MEDICATIONS, INJECTABLES & INFUSIONS.
@ CLINICAL TRIAL CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF THE SUNSHINE COAST
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -
Cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton
Professor Sims directs the Bone Cell Biology and Disease Unit at St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research and is a Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University.
She leads a team who studies the cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton. She completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide, followed by postdoctoral work at the Garvan Institute in Sydney then at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Connecticut, where she studied the role of the estrogen receptor in regulating bone structure.
