Myopia (nearsightedness) is rapidly growing in prevalence and carries with it significant socioeconomic burden and potentially blinding complications, including retinal detachment, choroidal neovascularization, and glaucoma. Eye growth and myopia are regulated by a complex interaction between genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors. However, the etiology of myopia is poorly understood.
 
The long term goals in our lab are to determine how genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors interact during childhood to contribute to eye growth regulation and structural remodeling, and to leverage this information to recommend evidence-based behavioral modifications to prevent myopia onset and develop new treatment strategies to intervene early in myopia to decrease the incidence of myopia-related pathologies.

Our lab is part of the University of Houston Myopia Control Initiative.