Mar 6, 2025

Sharon Qiu: Improving Patient Outcomes

Ultimately, Dr. Sharon Qiu hopes her research project will not only enhance patient comfort, but help prolong the health of the cornea.

Dr. Qiu, a trained optometrist who is currently completing her PhD at the University of Waterloo, is one of the recipients of this year’s Clinician Scientist Emerging Leader (CSEL) awards. The Fighting Blindness Canada award is aimed at helping promising emerging clinician scientists further their research projects. 

Dr. Qiu will be designing a new type of scleral lenses. Unlike soft contact lenses, scleral lenses are hard, and bigger. They cover not only the cornea, but the sclera—or white of the eye.

Scleral lenses are a common treatment for corneal scarring and corneal diseases—one of the top five causes of blindness in the world.

In a way, scleral lenses give patients a new cornea, Dr. Qiu says.

A layer of saline is added between the lenses and the eye when scleral lenses are inserted. The saline keeps the eye moist and fills in any hills and valleys of the irregular coronial surface.

“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.”

With her research project, Dr. Qiu is investigating if scleral lenses with customized limbus zone designs offer a better fit, enhance patient comfort and maintain the health of the cornea in the long term compared to conventional scleral lenses. The limbus zone is the border between the cornea and the sclera.

“With the support of this research grant, we’re able to design the next generation of scleral lenses. I couldn’t have done it without Fighting Blindness Canada’s support,” she says.

Scleral lens have had a huge impact on the quality of life and vision in patients with cornea pathologies, therefore improving the fit and comfort of scleral lens could have a significant impact on clinical care and patient outcomes.

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