PROFESSOR Yogesan kanagasingam

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Fulbright Senior Scholar

Media Profile

“According to Vision 2020, one child goes blind every minute. Yet according to the Clear Sight report seventy percent of blindness and vision loss can be prevented with cost effective intervention.”

Dr Yogesan Kanagasingam, Research Director at the Australian e-Health Research Centre has won a 2010 Fulbright Senior Scholarship to undertake research at Stanford University School of Medicine for four months. Dr Kanagasingam is based at the CSIRO’s Floreat site in Perth.

While in the U.S. Yogesan will develop and validate a new “non-invasive” imaging system for screening of newborn babies for sight threatening conditions such as Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP).

ROP is the major cause of blindness in newborns and is unique to extremely low birth weight or premature babies. It is quickly becoming the second most litigious medical condition in the U.S. If found early enough the condition can be successfully treated with laser therapy to the retina. A non-invasive, easy to operate diagnostic device would greatly assist with the prevention and treatment of this condition.

“Previously I developed a novel ophthalmic imaging device, EyeScan, which is expected to replace the 150 years old direct ophthalmoscope used by doctors. A new imaging module to this device could be developed to scan newborn babies. It is portable, easy-to-operate by trained nurses and low cost,” Yogesan said.

“As the U.S. leading ophthalmologists from the Stanford School of Medicine are the pioneers in telemedicine based screening of newborns, I will utilise their expertise to help develop and validate the proposed new device for telemedicine based screening of newborn.”

Yogesan said that the new technology promises to revolutionise screening of newborn of sight threatening conditions. It will be used to detect ROP, conduct follow up screenings, and also to allow screening of newborns and babies in rural and remote locations by GPs and trained nurses.

Yogesan has a PhD in medical informatics and other degrees from the University of Oslo, and is regarded as being among the top three in the world in his field. His multi-disciplinary approach is the driver of his success at developing technologies to help diagnosis of preventable blindness. Apart from his professional work he has been pivotal in introducing new medical technologies for community eye screening, through the Lions Save Sight Foundation.