A new National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant is putting University of Miami researchers at the forefront of efforts to better understand why nearsightedness is increasing among children and how it might be slowed.
The project, funded through a $628,100 first-year grant with continued support expected over four years, is led by Fabrice Manns, professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the College of Engineering and co-director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute's Ophthalmic Biophysics Center, in collaboration with researchers at Bascom Palmer and the University of Rochester's Center for Visual Science. The study focuses on how changes in the eye's lens contribute to the onset and progression of myopia.
Myopia, which is on the rise globally, is often attributed to the eye becoming too long from front to back. But researchers say the process is more complex. During childhood, the eye's lens continuously changes shape in ways that help maintain clear vision.
"After the age of about 2 years, the changes in lens shape and the lengthening of the eye work together to keep the eye in focus," said Manns. "During childhood, the eye progressively becomes longer, and at the same time, the lens progressively becomes thinner and flatter until about age 10. From an optical point of view, the thinning and flattening of the lens help balance the lengthening of the eye."
In many cases, that balancing process appears to break down at the onset of myopia. Until now, researchers have had limited ways to study how those changes unfold in detail.
Through the NIH-funded project, the interdisciplinary research team will develop new imaging technologies to measure the lens in three dimensions, alongside other key features of the eye, including its length and how it focuses light. These tools will allow researchers to follow children over time, capturing how the lens and eye grow together before and during the development of myopia.
"One of the challenges is designing a sophisticated instrument that can measure the eyes of very young children at many different focusing positions and viewing angles, when children have short attention spans and can't stay still for very long," said Marco Ruggeri, a research professor of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer. "To make this work, the system must be fully automatic and very fast."
The study will also produce computational models that simulate how individual eyes change as children grow. Researchers will use those models to test how different optical interventions, such as specialized lenses, might influence the progression of myopia.
"In pediatric eye care, early myopia can easily be missed, particularly in young children," said Dr. Kara Cavuoto, a pediatric ophthalmologist at Bascom Palmer. "If unrecognized, this can progress to visual impairment, which can affect daily activities and school performance. Having the ability to follow the development of a child's eye over time will help us better identify those changes and guide earlier, more targeted care."
Myopia affects an estimated 40 percent of people in the United States and is associated with a higher risk of vision-threatening conditions later in life, including retinal damage and glaucoma. Understanding how it develops and evolves will help improve prevention and treatment strategies.
"As someone who developed myopia around age 10 and eventually progressed to a high degree of myopia, I understand firsthand how challenging it can be to live an active childhood while depending on glasses or contact lenses," said Manns. "My hope is that our findings will contribute to more effective strategies to slow or even halt the progression of myopia."
