Gerrit Melles from the Netherlands and Claes Dohlman from Sweden are the winners of this year’s António Champalimaud Vision Award, the world’s largest award in the field of vision. This year the distinction went to works for the treatment of diseases of the cornea.
This Thursday, the researchers received the prize, endowed with one million euros, for the investigation and treatment of diseases of the cornea, the transparent outer layer of the eyes, which made it possible to prevent the blindness of millions of people around the world.
The Prize was created in 2006 and is supported by the “2020 — The Right to Sight” program of the World Health Organization. In odd-numbered years, it recognizes the work carried out in the matter by institutions in the prevention and fight against blindness and vision diseases, and in even-numbered years, such as this year, it recognizes scientific research in the area of vision. . Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was interrupted for two years and has now been resumed.
According to the Champalimaud Foundation, the two distinguished researchers have broken “new paths in the investigation and treatment of corneal diseases, restoring sight to millions of people and preventing others from going blind in the future.”
Corneal injuries or disorders have been one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide for many years. These two physician-scientists have decisively changed and accelerated the path towards the treatment of this disease. A deeper understanding of the transparent outer layer of the eye, as well as the possibility of ensuring an improved and more cost-effective approach to corneal surgery and transplantation, are essential to address this scourge,” the Foundation says in a statement.
Gerrit Melles from the “Dutch Institute for Innovative Eye Surgery” in Rotterdam has developed new corneal surgery techniques, making them simpler and safer.
As he himself explained, in statements to the Lusa agency, the innovation consists of a new approach to cornea transplantation. Either all or part of the cornea is transplanted “and what we do is selectively transplant a part of the cornea and we don’t touch the rest.”
This technique, used in Portugal for more than a decade, allows a much faster recovery of patients, with the specialist giving an example: instead of a year of recovery, the patient after three months can drive a car.
The Champalimaud Foundation, in the statement, says that the work carried out by Gerrit Melles “has made extraordinary contributions that have transformed corneal surgery, giving hope and quality of life to millions of people”, and the technique has “greatly accelerated visual rehabilitation ” and reduced the risk of complications.
In the statements to Lusa, the specialist admits that corneal diseases are in many countries, where prevention and treatment are not easy, one of the main causes of blindness, and adds that in many countries the techniques that the team he directs have improved surgeries and simplified recovery and health care.
Gerrit Melles talks about advances in the area of vision, admits new techniques in the future, but highlights that for now the approach he has developed and that has now earned him the award sought to make surgical techniques simpler and more accessible to countries and people with fewer resources.
But he has doubts that diseases of the cornea will no longer be a concern in the future. Because new diseases arise, caused by new lifestyles, because the population is aging, and because “the number of people who still do not have access to health is enormous.”
Gerrit Melles speaks in the plural. The António Champalimaud Vision Award is for that, he says, for an entire team, because everyone had a role in scientific advances, including patients. And the prize is, for him and for everyone, not only important but also encouraging.
Claes Dohlman, centenary and one of the most recognized ophthalmologists worldwide, does not hide his pride in the award, the most prestigious and the most valuable in the world, as he points out in his statements to the Lusa agency.
Doctor in medical research, former president of the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, United States, trainer of hundreds of specialists, Claes Dohlman developed innovative treatments in the field of vision and the creation of an artificial cornea, “especially for patients whose eyes were too damaged to benefit from a traditional transplant through donors, ”explains the statement from the Champalimaud Foundation.
His research led to the development of the so-called “Boston Cornea” (“KPro”), which is now used throughout the world. KPro is an artificial cornea created by Claes Dohlman in the 1960s and today with thousands of implants.
Speaking to Lusa, Claes Dohlman recalled that corneal diseases are considered the third cause of vision loss, after cataracts, which should not occur because they are easy to treat, and glaucoma.
Glaucoma, he said, affects more than 60 million people worldwide, but only a small percentage go blind.
In the Western world, explained the specialist, problems related to the cornea do not cause many cases of blindness, unlike what happens in developing countries, “where 90% of blind people live due to diseases of the cornea”.
Claes Dohlman graduated from Sweden and from 1958 he went to work in Boston, United States.
Source: Observadora
