Cardiff University receives £2.4m Medical Research Council grant for cornea research

Cardiff University’s School of Optometry and Vision Sciences has been awarded a £2.4 million grant by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The funding will go towards research to better understand the function of the cornea and to develop new therapies for connective tissue disorders.

The Cardiff University research team will be led by Professor Keith Meek. The team will collaborate with researchers from several other countries including Japan, Czech Republic, USA, France, Canada and Brazil.

It is the fourth consecutive time that researchers from the structural biophysics group within the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences have received a five-year programme grant from the MRC.

Professor Meek highlighted that the research aims to assist the development of better treatments for corneal diseases as well as moving forward basic scientific research into how structure drives function within the cornea.

“As the cornea is an excellent model system for connective tissues more generally, and by collaborating with other groups around the world, we can also use our new techniques to aid understanding of function/dysfunction in other parts of the body,” he said.

Image credit: Cardiff University