“In the optometric community, the Ohio State University College of Optometry is known as the premier institution for patient-based research.”

Dr. Melvin Shipp, Dean





“Optometric research is meaningful for the individual doctor, the individual patient, the researcher (obviously), and ultimately for the optometric profession in general. I strongly believe that research that changes how optometrists take care of people is the underpinning of a true profession. Optometry has that kind of research portfolio.”

Dr. Karla Zadnik, Associate Dean

About our research

Research in the College of Optometry aims to fill gaps in knowledge about visual science and optometry. The purpose of this search for knowledge is to improve education in visual science and optometry and thereby improve the quality of optometric care. Ohio State's College of Optometry is internationally recognized in the research areas of ocular physiology, contact lenses, infant and children's vision, vision rehabilitation, keratoconus, visual psychophysics, and visual perception.

The college maintains a research program in order to produce and disseminate new knowledge, to interact with researcher's from other disciplines at Ohio State and other institutions, and to educate researchers, faculty, and administrators in the fields of optometry and vision science.

More information on our research is available in the video provided below.



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TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:

Title: Answers About Optometry Research

Question: How important is research to optometry and vision science?

Dr. Karla Zadnik, Associate Dean: I think optometry has to be a part of the overall vision science research program in the United States and the world today to be considered a viable profession. I do not think as a profession optometry can just take other people’s research results and interpret them and incorporate them into patient care. So I think things that are looking to treat and ultimately cure macular degeneration, that are looking to figure out why people become myopic and figure out how that might not happen them. To figure out better ways to treat and cure presbyopia, as well as a variety of ocular diseases that we can now treat. If we do our own research we are by definition the leaders in all of those efforts, from the bench to the chair side.

Question: What research is taking place at The Ohio State College of Optometry?

Dr. Melvin Shipp, Dean: We have a variety of research projects ongoing here in the college. The primary bulk of those are clinically related. Clinical trials related specifically to refractive error for the most part. Basically understanding how we see and what kind of things we can do to intervene to help us see better. Also understanding how vision problems change over time, with respect to gender, with respect to race. All of these things allow us, number 1 to provide treatment but also to perhaps learn things to how to prevent or to maturate conditions that we can not deal with.

We also have some research activities that are going on with respect to older eyes, tears deficiency etc…and we have clinicians and researchers that are working with other disciplines here on campus to better understand how tear quality changes with time and how we can intervene to relieve conditions or relieve symptoms of discomfort.

We also have individuals on our faculty who are doing research in color vision or color naming,. A very innovative and novel research, we find that although we assume that all people see and appreciate colors the same, we find there are variations throughout the world.

And so all of these help us better understand vision as it relates to people and their ability to function in society.

Question: How has vision research changed in the past 10 to 20 years?

Dr. Karla Zadnik: I think vision research in the last 10 years in optometry, in schools and colleges of optometry specifically, has really become more sophisticated and has kept up more with research in the area of vision science in general. So we see basic scientists in our schools and colleges of optometry who are working on things in the lab that can ultimately be translated to patient care.

We also seen quite honestly, especially in the last 15 to 20 years more sophisticated patient base or epidemiological research that really 20 years ago when I graduated from optometry school, no one in optometry was doing. So things that look at risk factors for disease, things that look at randomized clinical trials to treat optometric conditions, all that’s new to our profession.

Question: What personal satisfaction have you gotten out of vision research?

Dr. Melvin Shipp: An experience I’ve had that has given me extreme personal satisfaction, I guess the one that comes immediately to mind is an occasion where I was doing a research project in Alabama. A research project to examine young children to determine how their eyes changed over time. It’s part of the CLEERE project, which is a major project that is being conducted here at OSU. During the course of this project, we would bring children in and examine various aspects of their eyes, refractive mostly in nature.

There was this little girl who was a first grader who came in along with two other little boys. And of, of course I love children, so I was interacting with the children, and I asked her “how are you sweetheart?” and she basically didn’t respond. And the two little boys that were with her, one of them said “don’t talk to her she’s stupid.” I told him don’t say that about someone one that’s not very nice.

Found out later that this little girl had something called aphakia, she did not have the crystalline lens within her eyes, so therefore she couldn’t really see. Either far away or up close. She had a very high refractive error. We detected that, we were able to provide care for her by number one alerting her parents but also arranging for her to get that care because she was from a family that was impoverished and really could not afford to provide that care for her.

Well, the next year when we had the battery of students that was in this project come through again, this little girl came through, this time with a pair of glasses with rather thick lenses, but totally different. Instead of being quiet and retiring she was now engaging and talking and playing with the other children. So I appreciated then that when you talk about eye and vision problems, it not just if someone sees 20/20 or not, it’s a quality of life issue. Suddenly she was aware of her world, able to interact with her classmates and with others in a meaningful way because now she could see people and appreciate them.

Question: Why do you find optometry research so exciting?

Dr. Karla Zadnik: I am excited about this research endeavor in optometry because we need it, because I feel like there have been a group of people over the last 20 years that have been able to advance it, to make real differences. And then the real answer to your question is, we get to find out the answers to these questions. I have a college who describes the perfect researcher as someone who is terminally curious; they ask questions all the time. The luxury of getting to answer those questions makes for a great job and ultimately a great profession of optometry

2007 The Ohio State College of Optometry