The children’s myopia research project initiated by the team of Professors from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (DOVS), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has been awarded the CUHK Outstanding Research Impact Award (ORIA) 2022/23.  The award is in recognition of the Department’s contributions to the work of children’s myopia prevention and myopia control.  Key members of the research team are Prof Clement CY THAM, Chairman of the Department; Dr Jason CS YAM, Principal Investigator of the research project; and team members Prof Calvin CP PANG; Prof Guy LJ CHEN, and Dr ZHANG Xiujuan. 

The award-winning research project is titled “Prevention of Myopia and Protection of Our Children’s Vision“, which establishes myopia control, myopia prevention, environmental factors of myopia and genetic factors of myopia based on the Low-concentration Atropine for Myopia Progression (LAMP-1) Study, the Low-concentration Atropine for Myopia Prevention (LAMP-2) Study and the Hong Kong Children Eye Study (HKCES).  LAMP-1 is the first randomized placebo-controlled trial of low-concentration atropine to control myopia progression.  The deliverables include establishment of “Clinical guidelines in myopia control” and publications of 5 articles in Ophthalmology (Impact Factor: 13.7).  LAMP-2 is the first randomized placebo-controlled trial of low-concentration atropine for myopia prevention and has affirmed the effect of 0.05% atropine to prevent myopia onset in children by 47%. The results have been published in JAMA (Impact Factor: 120.7).  HKCES is an ongoing territory-wide population-based cohort of over 40,000 children, with more than 40 publications, 1 in Lancet Global Health (Impact Factor: 34.3) and 3 in JAMA Network Open (Impact Factor: 13.8).  The team has also co-invented with the Hong Kong Productivity Council the Intelligent Glasses “My-O-Analyser” to monitor risk factors of myopia and to develop a healthy lifestyle, which has won multiple awards, including the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions 2022 and the TechConnect Innovation Award 2022.

This DOVS research project has provided service to more than 40,000 children and families. More than 100 eye doctors, 500 medical students, 100 nursing students, 3,000 secondary school students and 1,000 volunteers have served in the eye care programme.  Their societal contributions have been recognised with the Hong Kong Volunteer Award 2021.

The CUHK Outstanding Research Impact Award (ORIA) is given to researchers and project teams whose work has brought about demonstrable impacts on society beyond academia.  The award also aims to encourage the assimilation of impact culture into the CUHK research community.

Congratulations to the DOVS research team on this well-deserved recognition.

Republish