Safal Khanal, OD, PhD, FAAO.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Safal Khanal, OD, PhD, FAAO, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Optometry, and his research team have been awarded a $500,000 grant through the American Academy of Optometry Foundation (AAOF) to support their work in myopia research. Their study was chosen as one of only three recipients globally to receive the Meta Reality Labs Research/AAOF Myopia Research Grant. By examining children’s daily visual habits, the study aims to identify which aspects of children’s everyday visual experiences interact with the biology of the eye to influence myopia onset and progression.
“Children experience very different visual environments every day, from time outdoors and exposure to light to reading, schoolwork and use of digital devices,” Khanal said. “By measuring these experiences, alongside how the eye grows, focuses and responds to visual signals, we hope to better understand why some children become nearsighted and why myopia progresses more rapidly in some children than others.”
The research team will track children’s real-world visual experiences over time and combine those measurements with detailed assessments of eye shape, optical quality and retinal function, the announcement stated. This approach could help eyecare providers identify children at greatest risk of developing myopia or experiencing rapid progression and determine which environmental and biological factors contribute to that risk.
“Today, we primarily monitor how much a child’s prescription and eye growth change over time,” Khanal said. “We want to go a step further and understand what is driving those changes. If we identify these factors early, it could open the door to more personalized approaches to preventing or slowing myopia.”
By following children over time as part of a longitudinal design, researchers noted that they can examine changes that occur before, during and after the onset of myopia rather than studying the condition at a single point in children’s development.
The project is part of an open-science initiative in which the three grant recipients will collaborate and share data to accelerate discoveries in childhood myopia.
“Solving a problem of this scale requires a global collaborative effort,” Khanal said. “By working with researchers around the world and building rich, openly available data sets, we aim to identify the aspects of children’s visual environments that matter most for myopia. Ultimately, that knowledge could point us toward better ways to predict, prevent and treat the condition.”
Study partners include Reality Labs Research, SIXTY D, the American Academy of Optometry and Global Light Commons, an international initiative focused on light exposure and visual experience research. Children ages 7 to 13 are eligible to participate in the study, the announcement advised. Those interested in learning more can contact the research team at so-myopia@uab.edu.
