How it all began
It was the look of total devastation on the patient’s face when he was told that he would never see again that led Dr Fan Gaskin to embark on the journey of eye surgery. A medical student at the time, Dr Fan Gaskin realised that preventing blindness was what she wanted to dedicate her life to achieve.
However, she soon discovered that the currently available treatment options to patients with glaucoma is limited, and in many ways, suboptimal. Therefore Dr Fan Gaskin also conducts eye research at the Centre for Eye Research Australia, developing new treatments for patients with glaucoma.
Improving Glaucoma Surgery Outcomes
Dr Fan Gaskin is a Principal Investigator and leads the Ocular Fibrosis Research Unit at the Centre for Eye Research Australia. Her research focuses on developing improved methods of preventing scarring after eye surgery. Currently, toxic anti-cancer drugs are used to prevent scarring in glaucoma surgery. This can lead to destruction of healthy cells and result in long-term complications such as tissue thinning, wound break-down, and serious infections. Dr Fan Gaskin is developing a more specific and non-toxic method to achieve long-term surgical success.