Dry Eye 2020

DRY EYE 2020
Celebrating dry eye research, here,
there and everywhere
By Lesley Springall, editor NZ Optics
WELCOME TO OUR sixth dry eye special feature. Dry eye continues
to enthral and engage researchers and eye care practitioners across
the world, spurred on by the work of the Tear Film & Ocular Surface
Society’s second dry eye workshop (TFOS DEWS II) and driven by
people committed to improving the quality of life for the world’s
millions of dry eye disease sufferers.
This year, as well as delving into the ongoing, high-level research
at the University of Auckland’s Ocular Surface Laboratory (OSL),
we’re also pleased to introduce more international contributors, many
of whom work with Associate Professor Jennifer Craig and her OSL
team: California-based, fellow TFOS ambassador, Dr Scott Schachter’s
shares his opinion on whether eye care professionals (ECPs) should
be screening for dry eye with every examination (p40); Melbourne
University’s Dr Laura Downie provides an exciting update about her
team’s new point-of-care test for rapid and accurate dry eye diagnosis,
ADMiER (p30); while Canada’s
Karen Walsh presents her latest
published research into preserved
versus non-preserved eye drops (p26);
and the UK’s Sonia Trave-Huarte and
Prof James Wolffsohn discuss their work
with the OSL and other international collaborators
into ECPs’ approach to dry eye management (p22).
Once again, we are proud to share this latest update on all things
dry eye from this part of the world and further afield to recognise
and celebrate the collaborative efforts ongoing in dry eye today, many
involving the University of Auckland. We would also like to thank the
many contributors to this year’s feature, but especially our wonderful
clinical editor, A/Prof Jennifer Craig, who, with considerable time and
effort on her part, makes this feature possible.
Battling OSD despite the pandemic
By A/Prof Jennifer Craig
NO ONE COULD have imagined what 2020
would bring, least of all those in the eye
professions for whom ‘2020’, by all rights, was
supposed to be our ‘perfect’ year. And yet here
we are, more than six months in, with very
few globally having remained immune to the
impact of SARS-CoV-2.
Closed international borders and grounded
planes have led to ophthalmic conference
cancellations across the world. I pinch myself,
as I struggle to believe I was able to visit
Colombia, (much) earlier this year, to deliver
A/Prof Jennifer Craig conducting OSL research at
Armageddon, Auckland 2020
a TFOS DEWS II live demonstration session
at their annual ophthalmology congress, or
Barcelona where I chaired and presented at
Laboratoires Théa’s Ocular Surface Masterclass
for clinical ophthalmologists. Since then,
there’s been a string of conferences, at which
the Ocular Surface Laboratory (OSL) team
would have been represented, either cancelled,
postponed or rapidly converted into virtual
meetings. These include the Dutch Contact
Lens Congress (NCC) in the Netherlands, the
Scientific and Educators’ Meeting in Optometry
(SEMO) in Auckland, the Association for
Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
(ARVO) in Baltimore, the European Society
of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ESCRS)
in Amsterdam and the American Academy
of Optometry (AAOptom) in Nashville,
Tennessee, to name but a few.
For those of us in the field of ocular surface
research, however, the most heart-breaking
of all was the cancellation of the muchanticipated,
quadrennial TFOS Conference.
Due to have been held in Italy in September,
this meeting provides the opportunity for
clinician and basic science researchers,
educators and industry representatives to
network, discuss advances in the ocular
surface disease (OSD) field and plan future
research that will ultimately benefit patients.
We all look ahead to better times when we
can meet again and, personally, I also look
forward to the opportunity of fulfilling the
incredible honour of delivering the seventh
Claes H Dohlman plenary lecture on Ocular
Surface Disease as a Lifestyle Epidemic. In
the meantime, we will do our best to face
the challenges presented by the pandemic in
continuing to provide and promote better
health for patients with OSD.
OSL team update
For the Ocular Surface Laboratory, the pace
of life, somewhat paradoxically, stepped up
a notch during lockdown, and the adaptive
leadership challenge I had set myself for
reimagining ocular surface research without
face-to-face contact became more of a living
reality than a hypothetical scenario. I’m
incredibly proud of the resilience, agility
and adaptability of the OSL team, who
worked hard with each other, and with our
stakeholders, to reshape our research into a
series of viable projects capable of respecting
social distancing restrictions.
The researchers who were perhaps most
immediately affected by Covid-19 restrictions
were our two six-month visiting scholars: PhD
student Samira Hassanzadeh from Iran and
Sebastian Golcyzk, a masters student from
Germany, who, although they were thwarted
in their plans to explore our beautiful country,
rallied professionally with the support of the
OSL team to produce some great research
outcomes during their time with the OSL.
The projects they worked on are described
on pages 14 and 20, respectively, and we
look forward to welcoming them back to
collaborate further and to more extensively
explore New Zealand in the future.
Post-doctoral fellow Dr Alex Müntz has
had a fruitful year with publications expected
to be in double digits this year, including a
number as lead author. Alex plays a key role
in coordinating and supervising the team’s
research and, as a previous proud recipient of
12 | NEW ZEALAND OPTICS SEPTEMBER 2020