Through her joint appointment with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Optometry, Dr. Guanghan Meng is working on emerging technologies for people suffering from nearsightedness.
Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a common vision condition in which near objects appear clear but objects farther away look blurry. It occurs when the shape of the eye causes light rays to bend inaccurately.
“So usually, the most significant feature of people with myopia is the shape of their eye,” Guanghan said.
This change in the shape of the eye often begins in preschool children even before the onset of vision impairment. Therefore, myopia is one of the most challenging conditions to track in terms of progression. As a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley, Guanghan is focusing her research on developing a tool that doctors can use to check for myopia with accuracy and affordability, surpassing what is currently commercially available. Guanghan’s vision for the tool also includes the ability to measure the progress of the loss of sight over time.
However, Guanghan’s goals for her research do not stop here. Her long-term aim is to conduct both eye imaging and neuroimaging and ultimately develop an affordable diagnostic tool that does so precisely. According to Guanghan’s vision, this tool would concurrently image the eye and the brain. This would allow doctors to trace the neuron activities in the brain by looking at the eyes. The tool could, therefore, go beyond diagnosing ocular diseases and help inspect others, such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems, to name a few.
“We will just look at the eye, and we will know what is happening in other areas of the body. It sounds really ambitious, but hopefully not,” Guanghan said.
When Guanghan started out with this research as a postdoc, she was the only one working in this specific area in her lab, but over time she has mentored many undergraduate students who are now working under her on this project.
“I think collaboration is the most amazing part of the Berkeley science community,” she added.