IMPACT OF NEXTSENSE INSTITUTE RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF SENSORY DISABILITIES
With
Professor Greg Leigh AO,
Director, NextSense Institute, Australia &
Conjoint Professor,
Macquarie School of Education
Macquarie University, Sydney
RESEARCH IMPACT
Filmed in Sydney, Australia | June 2025
NextSense, formerly known as the Royal Institute for Deaf & Blind Children, is a not-for-profit established in 1860 that provides dedicated, innovative, and customised services aimed at breaking down barriers for children, adults and families of people with hearing or vision loss.
NextSense has a 165 year history of providing services and education for individuals with sensory impairments. With the support of donations, NextSense provides vital support for children and adults, more cochlear implants than any other service in Australia, and is a world leader for research, technology and professional education in the fields of visions and hearing loss.
NextSense clinicians are actively involved in a number of leading research projects—both independently and in collaboration with local and international organisations.
The NextSense Institute, part of NextSense is Australia’s leading centre for research and professional education in the field of sensory disabilities.
The Institute offers a range of educational programs, including postgraduate degrees, professional development courses, and customised training for educators, therapists, health professionals, and carers. One of its flagship programs is the Master of Disability Studies, delivered in affiliation with Macquarie University, which prepares professionals to work with individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision.
Professor Greg Leigh AO, Director NextSense Institute, talks about 3 areas of research that have had significant impact in it’s delivery of programs and services to Australians and countries across the world.
Through this research, NextSense Institute aims to break down barriers and redefine what is possible for individuals with sensory disabilities, fostering inclusion and enhancing quality of life.
Source: Written by AUDIENCED using source information from the NextSense website
-
Metabolic phenotyping, lipidomics & bioinformatics in dementia
Dr Luke Whiley is a dementia researcher whose work focuses on understanding how the body’s metabolism, particularly the biology of fats known as lipids, influences our health throughout ageing.
His research explores how the body responds to illness, lifestyle, and environmental stress at a chemical level, and how these responses shape longterm disease risk. Using advanced blood-based measurement technologies, Dr Whiley studies thousands of small molecules at once to build a snapshot of a person’s metabolic health. By combining these measurements with data science approaches, his work identifies biological pathways that become disrupted in disease, providing insight into why some people are more vulnerable to conditions such as dementia.
-
Hormone receptor positive breast cancer and therapy resistance
Prof Elgene Lim is a medical oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital and Head of the Connie Johnson Breast Cancer Research Lab at the Garvan Institute. Following his PhD at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute where he identified the aberrant cells in carriers of the BRCA1 mutant gene, a hereditary breast cancer syndrome as the culprit cells giving rise to breast cancer, he furthered his research and clinical training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He was awarded the National Breast Cancer Foundation Practitioner Fellowship in 2014 and returned from Boston to Australia. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural National Breast Cancer Foundation Endowed Chair, and subsequently appointed the Principal Cancer Theme Lead at UNSW.
-
Genetics and Environmental Factors of Glaucoma & Myopia
Professor David 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.
