Oct 9, 2024

Announcing the 2024 Clinician Scientist Emerging Leader Awards!

We are excited to announce the winners of the 2024 Clinician Scientist Emerging Leader (CSEL) award. These awards give emerging clinician scientists funding to help them further their research projects. Past CSEL winners have gone on to publish numerous papers, complete prestigious fellowships and start their own research labs.

Clinician scientists play an important role in the vision health landscape, connecting patient experiences with the research they are undertaking.

Proposals were reviewed by an expert panel to identify projects that could help advance vision loss research. This award supports the rising stars in Canadian vision research and health care.

This year we are introducing you to two new CSEL winners, Dr. Sheetal Pundir and Dr. Sharon Qiu.

Dr. Sheetal Pundir: Natural History Study of Inherited Retinal Disease (IRD) Caused by Peroxisome Dysfunction

Dr. Sheetal Pundir is currently a third-year ophthalmology resident at the McGill University Health Centre. Prior to medical school she completed a PhD and undertook postdoctoral research in retinal disease. Dr. Pundir’s project is to complete a natural history study to understand how vision loss progresses in Zellweger Spectrum Disorder. This inherited disorder has different symptoms including progressive retinal degeneration.

This natural history study will take visual measurements from patients over a number of years using different visual tests, like pupillometry and optical coherence tomography (OCT). This data may be useful to develop clinical trial endpoints or measurements for testing future therapies.

Dr. Pundir says, “The outcomes of this study will enable future therapeutic trials in inherited retinal degenerative diseases. This research grant is crucial for advancing our work in understanding the disease course of inherited retinal degenerative diseases.”

Dr. Sharon Qiu: Improving Scleral Lenses for Patients with Corneal Diseases

Dr. Sharon Qiu is our first optometry CSEL awardee! A trained optometrist she is currently completing a PhD at the University of Waterloo. During this degree, Dr. Qiu will be designing and testing the next generation of scleral lenses. Scleral lenses are a common treatment for corneal diseases like keratoconus and corneal scarring. Together, corneal diseases are one of the top five causes of blindness worldwide and improved lenses could have a large impact on patient outcomes and quality of life.

Dr. Qiu explains her motivation for becoming a clinician-scientist: “During my optometry residency in Cornea and Contact Lenses, I frequently observed gaps in the knowledge required to effectively care for patients with corneal diseases. This motivated me to pursue a PhD and to become a clinician scientist, with the goal of advancing evidence-based care for this challenging patient population and making a meaningful difference — both at an individual level as a clinician, and at a global level as a researcher.”

Congratulations to the 2024 Fighting Blindness Canada Clinician Scientist Emerging Leader awardees! And thank you to our donor community who have allowed us to invest in the future of vision research.

If you would like to support projects like these, please donate today.