CORNEAL AND OCULAR SURFACE IMMUNOLOGY AND REGENERATION
Associate Professor Holly Chinnery,
Inaugural Ian Constable Research Fellow,
Lions Eye Institute,
UWA Optometry at The University of Western Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Western Australia | November 2024
Associate Professor Holly Chinnery is a teaching and research academic in the field of corneal and ocular immunology who has spent her career teaching anatomy and immunology to Optometry students at the University of Melbourne and now at UWA, while also leading a Corneal and Ocular Immunology Research team.
Career highlights include:
– Leading a team of students and early career staff over the past 15 years working on corneal and retinal immunology, a co-leading the FrontTear Research Centre with Professor Laura Downie at the University of Melbourne https://www.fronttear.au/
– Receiving NH&MRC Ideas and ARC Discovery Grant funding
– Speaking invitations at Oxford University, University of Birmingham and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; and recent publications in PNAS and Nature Reviews Immunology.
Assoc Professor Chinnery’s career in ocular immunology began with a focus on animal models; however, it has recently transitioned into clinical imaging studies involving human research participants. The ability to visualise the immune system and sensory nerves in the human cornea represents a significant advantage in corneal immunology and neuroimmunology research.
This advancement is made possible through a methodology called Functional In Vivo Confocal Microscopy (Fun-IVCM), which enables the observation of immune cell dynamics in the living human eye. Utilising this technology led to a breakthrough in the field of ocular immunology, culminating in a report published in PNAS, a highly prestigious journal, regarding the presence of T cells in the healthy human cornea https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2217795120.
This finding challenges existing dogmas and is poised to reshape the field of corneal immunology, prompting a reconsideration of previously held beliefs about how the cornea manages inflammation and immune protection, with direct implications for healthy vision.
For the first time, a variety of immune cells can be visualised in the living human cornea, generating a wealth of new questions about immunology, cell biology, and the effects that diseases outside the eye have on immune cells at the eye’s surface.
In her recent appointment at the Lions Eye Institute, Assoc Professor Chinnery aims to establish and support a team of researchers focused on corneal and ocular surface regeneration, which is one of the key research priorities of the Institute.
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Professor Matthew Kiernan
BRAIN AND MIND CENTRE
@ UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES AUSTRALIA -
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.
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Respiratory health and the microbiome in the lung environment
Dr Taylor leads the Respiratory Health Group within the Microbiome and Host Health Program. His research employs tailored techniques that allow the lung environment to be characterised to a high level of accuracy, including detailed measurements of airway microbiology (microbiome), mucus composition, and inflammation. This information is used to identify predictive markers of chronic lung disease severity as well as determine effective forms of therapy.
