Eye drops are typically used to deliver ophthalmic drugs that treat both acute and chronic eye disorders such as glaucoma. However, drugs delivered by this method quickly leave the tear film due to blinking and drainage. In contrast, drug-eluting contact lenses allow the drug to remain in the tear film much longer, thus serving as a potential drug delivery vehicle. Recently, such lenses have...
The cornea is the transparent tissue in front of the eye, composed of three main layers: endothelium (a monolayer of cells towards the anterior chamber), stroma and epithelium (towards the tear film). The cornea is kept at the correct hydration, essential for its
transparency, by the endothelium pumping water out of the stroma. In our previous work [1], we showed that local osmosis (water...
Predicting injury severity and time-to-recovery after ocular chemical exposure is critical for chemical classification and risk assessment. Time-resolved in vitro data from localized injury on reconstructed corneal epithelium reveal concentration-dependent lesion evolution, including secondary propagation likely driven by necrotic cell rupture, yet these assays cannot alone predict...
Seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAC) affects up to 40% of the population; however, the complex immune signaling processes that drive ocular inflammation are not fully understood. In this work, we present a quantitative mechanistic model of the cellular immune response during SAC. A system of 23 coupled ordinary differential equations is developed to represent interactions among allergens,...
Understanding the behavior of the human eye is challenging due to the complex interactions between various physical phenomena, such as heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and tissue deformation. Although medical data can offer valuable insights into ocular physiopathology, the available information can be scarce and noisy. Moreover, in experimental studies, multiple factors come into play and it is...
Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness worldwide that is characterized by irreversible vision loss. In addition to elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), impairments in retinal blood flow and oxygenation have been shown to contribute to the progression of glaucoma. We extend our existing model of the retinal vasculature, which includes blood flow and oxygen transport mechanisms, to incorporate...
Abnormal retinal neovascularisation is a hallmark of many retinopathies, including diabetic retinopathy (DR), Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). It is still unclear how the altered conditions in these diseases, drive cells to construct these vessels, which exacerbate disease progression and in some cases sight loss. Current therapies focus on anti-vegf...
The retina is the light-detecting tissue layer which lines the back of the eye. There is an increasing awareness of the central importance of metabolic dysfunction in driving a range of currently incurable blinding retinal conditions. The retinal metabolic network is highly nonlinear with multiple feedback mechanisms, necessitating a mathematical modelling approach to accompany ongoing...
Mathematical Ophthalmology concerns the use of mechanistic mathematical models (e.g., ODE/PDE models) to derive insight into the mechanisms underpinning the structure and function of the eye in health, development and disease, and to predict the effects of existing and putative treatments. Computational Ophthalmology involves the application of advanced computational techniques, including...
