Week 3: The Start of Two Projects

This week I spent most of my time working on my project which involves analyzing data from Dry Eye disease patients. I also have another project, which is in collaboration with Dr. Starr who is another ophthalmologist, which is to test whether sodium fluorescein eye drops have an effect on the topography of the eye.

The data analysis project involves ranking the loss of patient's Meibomian glands as either mild, moderate, or severe. The Meibomian glands, which are located in the eyelids, replenish the oil layer of the tear film which has a mucin, water, and an oil layer. When patients Meibomian glands stop functioning and disappear they do not grow back, which can lead to Dry Eye disease. Technicians are able to image patient's Meibomian glands by using a machine called LipiView. There are also other tests that they do for patients who have Dry Eye disease such as a tear osmolarity and a matrix metallopeptidase 9 (MMP-9) test. After ranking the patients' Meibomian glands, I will see if there is a correlation between their rankings and their results for the tear osmolarity and MMP-9 exams, as well as with their demographics. So far I have created a spreadsheet with the names of the Dry Eye disease patients and I am in the process of entering all of this data for each patient into the spreadsheet.

The other project involves determining whether there are any changes in the topography of the eye with sodium fluorescein drops. To see the dry spots on patient's eyes, doctors put sodium fluorescein into both eyes and then look at them through a microscope with a cobalt blue light. Some doctors think that it is better to measure the topography of the patient's eyes before the sodium fluorescein is administered because it might change the eye topography. We are hoping to recruit some volunteers for eye testing next week! ( P.S. If interested, please contact me! :))

I am having a great time in the city so far and am learning a lot from Dr. Brissette as well as the other ophthalmologists. I cannot believe three weeks here have already passed by, but I am thankful to still have four weeks left here to learn more and continue to explore the city.