20/12/2016

Author: Cari Pérez Vives, PhD, Medical Affairs, Alcon Management (Switzerland)

As part of Alcon and as a Marie Curie fellowship, we have started a collaboration with some member of the “Fundacion oftalmologica del Mediterraneo (FOM)” located in Valencia (Spain). FOM is an eye hospital with multidisciplinary professionals working in vision since 2005. FOM has been a monographic centre of care, teaching and performing research in ophthalmology. Eight years later FOM became part of FISABIO changing its name to FISABIO-Oftalmologia Medica, a structure for research using synergies for growing. FOM also belongs to the research network of the Valencia regional government and has a collaboration agreement with Physics Department at University of Valencia for research and education.

Prof. Artigas’s research group counts with several devices and innovative techniques to evaluate intraocular lenses and contact lenses. They have a scientific background assessing image quality, spectral transmission, scattering, color vision with intraocular and contact lenses.

Dr. Garcia-Domene is the training program coordinator of an Educational Grant at FOM and University of Valencia, supported by Alcon. Thanks to this partnership both institutions are running together their postgraduate training program in ophthalmology. Dr. Garcia-Domene and Dr. Perez-Vives, recipients of both grants, have been working closely in vitro studies basically with analysing intraocular lenses.

The first project was related to the ultraviolet filter measured in different intraocular lenses and shown to vary across the various IOL brands. The publication now is under review in a high impact journal. As the first collaboration was very productive, further projects will come in 2017. 

It is important to note that the research performed at FOM and University of Valencia by Dr. Garcia-Domene is totally independent and not influenced by Alcon.