Ophthalmologist Dr. Alex Hewitt, associate professor and principal research fellow at the University of Tasmania's Menzies Institute for Medical Research, was recently named the top-ranked Practitioner Fellow for 2015 by the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia for his work on creating cures for currently untreatable blinding eye diseases.
Dr. Hewitt — who has a sub-specialty in inherited eye diseases — is reportedly using cutting-edge biotechnology to get a better understanding of what happens at a molecular level in the eyes of patients with these types of diseases. Through a collaborative team of researchers in both Tasmania and Australia, Dr. Hewitt has been able to establish a large repository of patient-specific stem cell lines, which is reportedly making it possible to study retinal cells to define and correct gene pathways involved in these diseases.
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Source: University of Tasmania