70: Genetic and UV Environment on Teen Eyesight Disorders

Genetic and UV Environment on Teen Eyesight Disorders ($90,000)

Professor David Mackey, who works with with the University of Tasmania, the University of Melbourne and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, has been awarded a grant from the monies raised for CCMRT by Ken Gourlay.

The Twins Eye Study in Tasmania (TEST) has been looking at children and adolescents for the last five years, to determine the genetic and environmental factors associated with the development of vision problems in later life. Comparing pairs of identical twins against pairs of non-identical twins lets researchers measure the relative genetic and environmental contribution. Collecting information on environmental factors allows researchers to determine how much these contribute to eye disease. Major concerns in children are whether a child develops good visual acuity or possibly a lazy eye (amblyopia), whether a child needs glasses for short or long sightedness, whether a child develops a turn in their eye and has poor 3D and whether a child develops sun damage to the eye. There are both genetic and environmental factors that contribute to all of these.

Work by other researchers in Sydney has found that Australia has low rates of short sightedness but other work in Sydney has shown that Australian school children have high rates of sun damage to their eyes. Preliminary work from the Twins Eye Study in Tasmania, using data from the Tasmanian Infant Health Study, suggests factors before birth influence a child’s 3D vision. Although over 200 pairs of twin children and adolescents have been studied in Tasmania over the last five years, another 200 pairs are needed to determine the importance of these preliminary findings. A comparison of the Tasmanian twins with over 300 pairs of twins in the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study is planned, with genetic testing to identify genes that put children at risk for eye disease. The future hope is to identify children who are at genetic risk for particular eye problems and modify their environment and behaviour to maximise healthy eyes.