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Rohan Hughes (postdoctoral fellow) and Shashank Bhandary (PhD student), alongside Professor Michael Collins (Optometry and Vision Science), are focusing on the impact of “near work” (short-distance activity) and improving treatment – with an emphasis on those affected at a young age.

Prof Collins said it was a “nice microcosm of myopia research - Rohan concentrating on the treatment of myopia and Shashank looking at risk factors … both very important areas”.

“Back when I was a student, you could only give people glasses or contact lenses to make their vision clearer - you couldn't stop myopia from progressing, it just kept getting stronger and stronger,” Prof Collins said.

“Now we're starting to understand some things that cause it, and some things you can do to control it. So we can slow down myopia progression ... there can be all sorts of nasty complications in later life if keeps progressing, so we've got good reason to try to slow down eye growth.”

Near work – reading, studying, computer and screen use - has long been established as a risk factor.

“The more time you spend at school, and the more intensive the schooling - including going on to university - the more likely you are to experience short-sightedness,” Prof Collins said.

“In some east Asian countries, where they spend a long time in school plus do weekend work, up to 80 to 90 per cent of kids have myopia.

“There is plenty of evidence to show it's related to near work and lifestyle for children - tablets, phones, games … near work that didn’t happen as much even a generation or two ago.”

Sunlight, considered a mitigating factor for myopia, is among the focus areas for the QUT researchers.

“In Australia, children have a fair bit of education but are also spending, comparatively to other countries, a fair bit of time outdoors,” Prof Collins said.

“Countries such as South Korea, China and Japan, where kids may not go outside as much, have really high rates of myopia.”

Rohan said finding a way to prevent myopia from developing would be the “nirvana” of research.

“It would be good to have a treatment that just stopped myopia in its tracks, or even prevented it from developing all together,” he said.

“At the moment, we can delay it by encouraging kids to spend more time outdoors and to take breaks with near-work activity.

“Research over the past decade has given us a good idea of who is most at risk of developing myopia. But we can't look at an individual child and say ‘ you're definitely going to get myopia, or you're definitely not’.

“I’m looking at the effect of treatments such as atropine eye drops, glasses and contact lenses, which are increasingly prescribed to children and adolescents to slow the excessive eye growth which causes myopia.

“While these treatments are effective, we don’t fully understand why they actually slow myopia progression and what effect they are having on the eye’s structure, how the eyes are focusing and the images that the eyes produce.

“Low-dose atropine eyedrops, for example, have been around for many years but have well-known side effects. Our aim is to optimise treatments so that they're most effective, and not causing any sort of detrimental effects.”

Rohan said his own background illustrated the difficulty in predicting who would be affected.

“I was nine when I saw the optometrist for the first time … I’m the youngest and my mother said ‘he'll be fine, he always reads’. Yet of my family, I was the only one who had a problem.

“Yes, I was an avid reader and I was also the first one in the family to grow up with a computer in the house, and I spent a lot of time on that.

“Conversely, I lived in north Queensland (Proserpine), so sunlight was not a problem. I'm only a fairly low to moderate myope and knowing what I know now, there are probably various factors in my favour for not developing high levels of myopia.

“I feel like I'm the research equivalent of everything coming together to show different effects and factors, given I was doing lots of near work but spent a fair bit of time outdoors as a kid.”

Shashank, meanwhile, is focusing on genetic and environmental factors of near-work environments.

“Most individuals do some sort of near work, plus use gadgets such as smartphones and laptops (away from the office),” he said.

“I’m analysing the environment of school children through to university students. Myopia often develops during school years.”

Similar to his fellow QUT researcher, Shashank’s family background did not suggest a preposition to developing myopia.

“I was born in Mangaluru (Mangalore) and raised in a very populated area of western India, Mumbai. My parents did not have myopia … yet I have glasses and my brother has glasses.

“Where I grew up, most people don't go to clinics or are not even aware they need to get their eyes checked. It is only when they get an occupation, such as driving or office work or joining the armed forces, that they get to know if they have an eyesight problem.

“Even schoolchildren - it's easy to have your friend's or colleague's notebook next to you, so you can copy the notes. It likely prevents even the parents knowing if their kid has a problem - and whether it is affecting grades.”

Shashank explores risk factors in children reading or completing tasks on laptops and phones, comparing those who wear glasses with those who don’t.

The work of these – and future - researchers has been enabled by a perpetual endowment from Greg Adam, through generous gifts over many years and a gift to QUT left in his Will.

A gifted young sportsman, Mr Adam started having difficulty with his sight as a late teen. As his understanding around his condition of myopia grew, he realised how many children were diagnosed with short-sightedness and wanted to make a difference regarding its impact on young lives.

Rohan said the endowment “allowed my position to be created here at QUT … it has allowed me to be in the lab, conducting research. “I'm very grateful.”

• For more information about a gift to QUT in your Will, contact Heath Mackay, Development Manager (Gifts in Wills), on 07 3138 7525 or heath.mackay@qut.edu.au