Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, with an estimated 80 million people affected including more than 200,000 Australians.
Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM is a clinician scientist who heads the Physiology and Pharmacology Research Centre within the Lions Eye Institute and the University of Western Australia. Backed by over 3 decades of NHMRC funding, Professor Yu has been a leader in innovation and treatment for common retinal vascular diseases and glaucoma which has led to safer surgery and improved vision outcomes.
Watch and listen as Professor Yu discusses the decades of NHMRC supported research that ultimately led to the development of the XEN® Glaucoma gel stent, reshaping glaucoma surgery worldwide.
Recorded on Monday 16 February 2026 at 11:00AM-12:00PM.
- Video transcript
01:29 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Okay, it's a few minutes past 11, so I think I'll start. I know a few people are still logging in, but I guess it won't matter too much if you miss what I say, because you'll hear the really important talk in a minute.01:46 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Thank you all for joining us today for what is the first Speaking of Science webinar for 2026 and before I start importantly, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we're all meeting on today. I would personally like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional custodians of the Australian Capital Territory where I am today. I acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contributions they make to the life of this nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and I extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today online.02:29 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Before I get started, I would like to remind everyone that there's an opportunity to ask questions at the end so think about your questions while the talk's going on, and put your questions into chat, and then we can make sure they get answered. This webinar is being recorded so you can go back and re watch it, or if you there are people who haven't been able to log on, you can tell them to watch it and get it from the NHMRC website.02:58 Professor Steve Wesselingh
As I mentioned, this is the first webinar for 2026 and we're really hoping to set the tone with this webinar for what you can expect throughout the year as we lead into NHMRC's 90th anniversary. Ninety years of NHMRC. For 9 decades, NHMRC has funded health and medical research in Australia, and I can confidently say that we've improved past, current and future health challenges for all Australians, and we have ensured a world class health system here in Australia. So many investigator led discoveries have been funded through NHMRC, and they've had this enormous impact on the health system that we know today. Fom the development of the HPV vaccine Gardasil through to the national bowel screening programme, NHMRC funding has supported the nation in overcoming some of the greatest public health challenges, something that I think we're all here at NHMRC really proud of, and I certainly am really proud of that.04:06 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Today's story fits very much into that category of impact and discovery, hard work, persistence and the enormous impact on the people's vision across the country.04:21 Professor Steve Wesselingh
That brings me to introducing our guest speaker. Professor Yu is a clinical scientist who heads the Physiology and Pharmacology Research Centre within the Lion's Eye Institute and the University of Western Australia. He's received consistent and continuous support from the NHMRC for more than 35 years, and has built 10 well established labs and highly talented multidisciplinary teams that focus on the common retinal vascular diseases and glaucoma. He has established long term collaborations with leading universities and importantly, with instrumental pharmaceutical companies around the world.05:10 Professor Steve Wesselingh
In 2019 Professor Yu was acknowledged in the Queen's Birthday Honours for his contribution to eye research, including the development of the XenGlaucoma gel stent.05:24 Professor Steve Wesselingh
World Glaucoma Week actually isn't celebrated until next month, but it is important that we understand the impact of glaucoma as the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, with 80 million people affected and actually more than 200,000 Australians.05:44 Professor Steve Wesselingh
For more than 20 years, Professor Yu has led a team of researchers at the Lions Eye Institute at the University of Western Australia to develop a new approach that has revolutionised glaucoma treatment, leading to safer surgery and improved vision outcomes worldwide.06:03 Professor Steve Wesselingh
I really can't wait to hear Professor Yu's presentation and if you could all join me in welcoming Professor Yu to Speaking of Science today. Welcome Professor Yu. Really looking forward to your talk.06:15 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Thank you very much, Steve. I will talk about our work. Thirty years in developed glaucoma operation and from a concept to worldwide use. NHMRC gives us long term support. Without NHMRC support all work, we cannot get it out.06:44 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Our group is mainly focused in the common eye disease and the vicious threatening disease many is retina vascular disease and glaucoma. Our approach is from basic research and the discovery, then translation. We are very lucky to have multidisciplinary team and very skilled teams. We have 7 staff who have worked with me more than 20 years, and we also have young people to join us. We are established more than 10 labs, and most labs are unique. We set up ourselves, and those labs make us a strong base to do this basic research and the clinical work, also make connection with international groups.07:55 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
I would like to talk about few words about glaucoma and the surgery. Eighty million people suffer with glaucoma, about 2% of population, which is the second most common cause of blindness. Glaucoma, major risk factor is high intraocular pressure. If damaged optical nerve, that's irreversible. Drug could be used for treatment. Our group has worked with Alcon and Novartis which are the current 2 drugs, which are beta blockers and prostaglandins. However, 50% of people cannot use daily drug on the control, IOP.08:50 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Also other thing is that Glaucoma is a structured disease which is favoured with surgical treatment. Glaucoma has filtration surgery, have 180 years history as continuous efforts in many of our intelligent peoples. All surgeries create a bypass to drain aqueous humour, going to low pressure environment. Current golden standard operation is Trabeculectomy. It's more than 50 years right now. However, there is no procedure that we can say is safety and also is effective.09:46 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
We need to address what is aqueous flow. Aqueous flow goes through a high resistance environment, and then continuously flow is about 2 microliter per minute to keep a positive IOP. If you want to match about physiological resistance, you only need to open a very tiny channel to keep this so called physiological resistance. However, Trabeculectomy, as you can see, opens a big hole, right? It is an extensive operation make our conjunctiva damage and also make our trailer flap as well.10:39 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Here is a schematic drawing to show how complicated this kind of surgical procedure, normally, we take about 45 minutes to finish an operation because multiple procedures use very difficult to control about standard procedure. Also after operation, this result is quite unpredictable, some kind of bleb associate complications is quite severe. Clinically, we normally watch appearance of breath to thinking about what is outcome of surgery. Also, other drainage device has been used clinically. So those drainage devices are mostly made out of artificial material and the scarring and inflammation is not avoidable.11:46 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Current operation fail rate is about 50% in 3 years. Trabeculectomy is better. This data is based on Stanford University report in 2000 to 2003.12:03 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, let's talk about our work. Microfistula. Xen is the commercially used trade name. I don't know what this really means. What is our approach we're looking for. One is we have to do minimal invasive operation under too much of a physiological condition. That's what we try to do. First of all, we think about building biomaterial implants, which is artificial material to reduce inflammation reaction. Second is importantly, we go through upper internal procedure, which does not go through outside to do operation, and it goes through arterial chamber, so that's without damage, conjuctiva. Third thing is we use one needle implants. All operation is finished inside of one needle, so to make about minimal damage. We have patented this 30 years ago.13:26 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Then we start work. We patented our idea and then doing research work about 10 years this May. Perhaps this most extensive, or most so called costly, developed procedures. What we believe is the evidence is glaucoma surgery cannot be finish our simple way to do it. I'll give you more evidence later.14:06 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Then we do translation stage which took another 10 years but this included licencing, funding, the clinic trial and also the FDA approval for all those things. That sppaned another 10 years. Then Allergan is purchased our technique, and after Allergan purchased, started worldwide use very quickly reach about 30 countries and 300,000 patient cases very quickly. I don't know exactly now how many patients and how many countries, we do not have these figures, but we still ongoing. We found out some kind of problem we still need to improve and also started thinking about new ways to treat glaucoma.15:18 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, let me give you more detail about this one is microfistula which is built by biological material gelatin which builds this tubing. This tubing has to be bio-compatible and also this one needs to be cross linked to modify whatever we need for operation. We need to make a hair size tubing with maybe few millemetres lens, and also this tubing has to be implantable, which is you need some kind of semi rigid tubing. Also, during the operation, this tubing will be swelling and will soften because eyeball is a curved shape, so in that certain time, we begin building about lab bench top, this so called setup to manually make tubing and those things with stuff for changing about cross link protocol. As you may know about, gelatin tubing can be manufactured up to more than 20 factor, you can change cross link condition. This very heavy work made more than 1000 microfistula tubings, and did 400 implantations and then we did a clinical study and also the histology study, to look up tissue reaction of those tubings. Finally, we achieve all parameter we wanted.17:20 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Then we start to think about how to put those tubing into the eye. What we're looking for is doing a precise implantation. We need to put in the right location, right depth, in the right timing. This way is quite challenging, so we start for building about 2 robotic system. Because humankind is is not stable like robotics, we beginning using manual control to push about 3 motors finish our all implantation procedures. Then we know exactly time we need, and also tubing quality to be improved. In that time we start using a robotic+ programme to control of those things.18:22 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
In the left side, you can see a microfistula holding a load, and with a push needle behind here, all those 3 have to go into a 25G needle, inside the 25G. We fix the eyeball in the position, and we use robotic doing implantation. Robotic is not practical for clinical situation or commercialisation, so we start developing a handheld implant to depress robotics and use programme control to do operation.19:11 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
When we finish this step, the operation works so then we start a quite extensive experiment test. As you can see, it's a needle and we go through the cornea, go to anterior chamber, then under gonioscope, of the version, we can see trabecular meshwork, then we push our needle, go through trabecular meshwork under 2 conjunctiva. When conjunctiva in eyeball is positive pressure, naturally this bleb will form. When bleb is formed, we can adjust depth of position. Finally, we push button, so automatically the process starts and finishes the operation. When you finish operation, you can see a level in the here to be in the here and afterwards, tubing will stay in the eye because the tubing will be swimming and stay in the position.20:27 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Here is a true operation we did. You can see either goes through anterior chamber, keep this either in the right position and going through anterior chamber. Then we use gonioscope for trabecular meshwork, then push further and up to 3 millimetre away from limbus area. Then we need to see bleb formation and you can see bleb formed. Since that time, we can adjust needle position and depth and then I can push button, so automatically, procedure will finish.21:29 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
All procedures takes about less 2 minutes, and it's quite exciting. We only need a short time and without too much damage in the eye to finish our operation.21:51 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Then you can see it's a tubing put in there, because this gelatin tube is semi transparent so it's difficult to see it, but there is tubing in here. We start to move either through eyeball, and we need to very carefully protect the iris and corneal tissues, and try to withdraw our needles. It also needs to protect this so called intra point without lost aqueous. As you can see this eyeball at the beginning and finish is in the right shape, keeps positive intraocular pressure, which this one is very important to put in the right location.22:59 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, we are very excited for our work. We expect to see nice results come out. In the two weeks time. Most about those things, we can see very nice bleb form. Bleb can survive, but the results come out and there is significant variations. Some bleb is lasting after two weeks, some gradually reduced in size and disappeared. Some bleb will be lasting quite long. In that time, we have to think about why this kind of situation? We are very carefully thinking about what is aqueous? What is aqueous flow? What is the intraocular environment? What is aqueous living in the eyeball? As you know about aqueous is produced by celia body, and basically is from plasma. It then goes to anterior chamber, and then go to trabecular meshwork, and then goes outside.24:34 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Intraocular environment is ocular immune privilege system. There is a lot of mechanisms and a lot of molecules to keep this privilege system environment. That's why our aqueous system lasts our life time. The trabecular meshwork also has very good phagocytosis function to the morph cell debris and also its other larger proteins. As you may know about intraocular, the lens is bigger and its cornea both are less vascular.25:25 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
All those things with metabolic waste will go to aqueous. Aqueous of the left eye is going to fully endocytomy cells, lining system. That's a normal condition. When doing glaucoma operation, it is created by a pathway. This bypass is a bypass of our trabecular meshwork, we lost a phagocytosis. Also going to a new environment, going to conjunctiva. Conjunctiva is immuno, very active environment.26:10 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Then we started thinking about how to make this better and how to do this work. Conjunctiva and the Tenon's capsule is very important for glaucoma surgical outcome. Total thickness of our conjunctiva plus Tenon's capsule is about 200 or 300 microns, which is about three hair size dimension.26:42 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
What fluid goes to conjunctiva become extracellular fluid. Also this fluid going to conjunctiva is on field, aqueous. When you go into conjunvtiva, you will meet lymphatics. Lymphatics are so amazing, and the experimental results teach me to understand about those situations. Lymphatic conjunctiva is including conjunctiva capillary, we call them rich lymphatics, which is blind under 20 micron size. Then it's going to become a pre collector. This pre collectors, there is a pump function. This one is an image of the left organ. He has a one way valve, and also can do work against the pressure gradient and against osmolar gradient to perform our work.28:07 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Now I will like to show you what is already described and how lymphatics work with aqueous. Before I show you video clip you can see when you start injecting fluorescence to anterior chamber, you can see aqueous come out going and go into conjunctiva. Almost immediately you will find some kind of vascular structure is very irregularly shaped and also come out very quickly to meet this aqueous. Then meet with aqueous, all those kinds of saturation. Please notice the one is how close lymphatic and the aqueous come out also look at timing.29:12 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This is a video that shows when you inject fluorescence very quickly, it come out and you can see lymphatics comes out. Many people ask me, those lymphatics exist one or is produced by angiogenesis, but almost certainly this does not exist. One is some kind of lympho angiogenesis which starts after we put aqueous in.30:05 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This one is a very important study we did, so let us know, how do we improve so called glaucoma surgery. This is also is a special staining for conjugated lymphatic so you can see very tiny lymphatic capillaries, pre collectors, same as I showed you before. We use FGFR3 antibody staining, so then you can find out this lymphatic capillary is in this location, it is about 100 micron below the epithelium cells. Also you can find pre collector is in the Tenon's capsule.30:55 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This lymphatic capillary is very interesting. When you have extracellular fluid with pressure on the floor, this endothelium cell junction will be opened up, big molecular or cell debris get in. Blood vessel in the conjunctiva has tie direction. There is not that kind of function. He may able to take water, but never able to take our large molecule under the cell debris. This one, because lymphatic is impossible to see, we have to inject some dye into the conjunctiva, going to conjunctiva tissue. We inject this level. Epitheial cell thickness is about so called 40 micron to 50 microns, so all needles are going in very superficially. Then injection are going to.32:05 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This one is so called pre collectors. This one is pre collector I showed you before. All those are lymphatic capillaries in here. When you waste stuff for injection, you can see there is a pre collect come out first, so then some lymphatic capillary filling in here. When you see later, you will see some lymphatic also showed in here. First of all, you think about this 30 gauge needle size is about 300 microns. Lymphatic capillary is about 20 to 50 microns. So that's impossible to be able to inject. This needle goes through this lymphatic capillary. This clearly demonstrates this lymphatic, very unique position.33:07 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
If we inject going to Tenon's capsule, inject into here, what happens? You can see it. There is not any lymphatic that shows up, but currently all of my glaucoma operation is going to sub conjunctiva. That's a major question we need to sort out.33:41 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, so when know about this lymphatic location and know about how important lymphatics are, our research results are getting much better right now. Here is to show you other pictures. When we inject fluorescence, going to anterior chamber, you can see fluorescence come out from this point very quickly. Almost immediately you can find the lymphatic come to get out of those kind of aqueous art. If I show you video, you can see this one. Almost immediately, because our video cannot catch too fast. This definately is less seconds, aqueous come to here, lymphatic do this work. But up to now, how good lymphatic contribution for glaucoma surgery has still not been recognised. Again, it's timing and the location also lymphatics is not able to exist. Lympho angiogenesis is also involved.35:15 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
These results. These rabbits are about 2.3 years. Normally, we do tribe collect in the rabbit's eye, only lasting about two weeks. But we get about two years three months. This longevity will be 50 times longer than those kind of situation. Also more solid evidence, we did other study is injection and growth risk, so fear of lymphatics. Then injection fluorescence goes to anterior chamber, you can see them nicely both meet together. This is lasting about six years. So up to this stage, we are very happy with our research outcome. We like to share our success with worldwide, and use for clinic patient to get the benefit. So commissionisation is essential step.36:41 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
With help in America, we spent a lot of time searching our best partner to work together. Finally, we set up a US-based startup company called AqueSys. We're licenced to go through the university with AqueSys and finished those legal process. It is, I have to say this kind of work is not good for research or clinician to do. This is a different kind of work, but we do spend lot of time to try find the commissionisation password. Funding is other challenges since, we've totally raised about $101.5 million US dollars, and this funding is Carlyle. You may know Carlyle very well, and SV Life Science is one of largest medical equipment venture capitals. I went to Boston and talked with a professor from Harvard and from Mayo Clinic. Take a long hours meeting, but at the end SV Life Science confirm they will provide us first ground funding.38:23 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Our job started, so we have to transfer all technique we did about 14 years, and the staff will help to develop our technique and build our tubing, build our implanter and teach our whole procedures. Also we start for multiple centre international trial in eight countries, which study effectiveness and safety and those kind of issues. Then we applied for FDA, CE Mark and Australia TGA for worldwide use. AqueSys purchased our technique for $300 million and with some kind of milestone payment.39:20 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This one is currently used for clinical implanters. You can see neither is go through cornea, then target the trabecular meshwork goes through Schlemm's Canal, goes through, goes to sub conjunctiva and going to conjunctiva. This schematic, this take a long time to discuss because key questions we need to know about those tubing where it is going to. Under this is only 200 micron, this kind of thickness of conjunctiva and Tenon's capsule, right? But it is very complicated in this kind of situation. We spent a lot of time to study all those things.40:30 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, this is the first patient we did. This is one day after operation. You can see this patient has microfistular implanted and the patient eye is almost very quiet and very nice. This patient has had trabecular ectomy before. You can see the dectomy here. This definitely did this area. Under this conjunctiva, it looks quite nice, flat bleb under those kinds of situation is important. This photo is taken about two years later, and you can see eye conjunctiva look is a very normal appearance. This is where they are looking for it's not looking bleb like, abnormal conjunctiva appearance. This look is almost normal, and you can see tubing nice stay in that position. IOP is very well controlled.41:43 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Under other examples, you can see this patient has big scarring before operation, right? Did trabecular ectomy. We did the operation in this cadence, and also afterwards, it's very well controlled.42:03 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
But work is not ending yet, so we get some kind of achievement. First of all, this operation is much less invasive and also recovery time only takes about one or two weeks. Patient is much more comfortable. Trabecular ectomy normally takes about six to eight weeks for the patient to feel better and for IOP restoration.42:33 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Intraocular is compatible with trabecular ectomy, but there is a scarring and inflammation is still happening. This is happening in the old glaucoma filtration operation. How do we reduce scarring and inflammation? Those kind of situation is currently our work. You can see, bleb is most important. We're looking for outcome of glaucoma surgery results. This is a typical example of bleb. It shows clinically, very difficult for us to judge and if you compare with bleb, unless word is skin right, and this bleb is much more complicated, because if you get injury, you only get one stimulation, and glaucoma, after operation, is continuously stimulation by aqueous humour, induced a lot of problems.44:01 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Also this, I just talked about two microliter per minutes, this flow rate, but the truth is you will get about two ml per day. You just think about if this aqueous been not being removed this conjunctiva, will become very swelling and elevated. What we need to think about, important things we have to know about are what is lymphatic distribution in the conjunctiva before operation and after operation. How does this kind of lymphatic deal with inflammatory reaction and how to deal with scarring? This is the most important information we have to get and so they will spend about 10 years to develop a system to view optically by opposite of bleb, and we call this one the bleb view.45:14 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
This one has to be non invasive, and without use of any dye, doesn't matter, fluorescence or blue, so then we can use clinically. We collaborate with UK, Canada, US engineering team, we test many different kinds of machine, and then expect more than two years to develop all systems. Currently we use a dual spectra, dual GPU and the SD OCT system so now we can see lymphatic capillary distribution under also you can see different layers, under we're also able to monitor our lymphatic and interaction with inflammation and the scarring of those things.46:11 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Currently we're doing clinical study. As I mentioned all operation currently is going to AqueSys. We still keep classic technique, street lamp photograph for bleb and also to use anterior segment to OCT to see about big pictures, particularly is current range of pathway and large amount aqueous. But one thing I have to say is this anterior segment of OCT cannot see our detail, structure or changes and inflammation and scarring under those things. Only use bleb view you can see detail of those changes. Of course, we collaborate with Heidelberg which is an engineering company in Germany. We modify a system previously used for cornea, so then we can see image about conjunctiva in detail. But this only can see several levels, but it's only very small field and the current purpose we have for demonstrating lymphatic is so important, also under the morph acqueous out of big molecule to induce inflammatory reaction and reduce scarring is critical.48:04 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Our team's application showed their work to know about those two points. Currently we're doing our clinic study. All different surgical procedure will be studied. We did a previous study about 43 cases, and currently is doing formal study. Currently, we have 23 cases. Before operation, post operation at day 1, week 1, months 1, 3, 6 and 12 as well as years 1, 2, 3 and 4. We hope we can finish this operation under demonstration then people know how to improve glaucoma surgery.49:12 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
I show you some exciting results, because we're just doing this work. Under this one is slit lamp photos. You can see his appearance, but use our so called grab view now, so then we can see very detailed information. Also it's three dimensional. We can go through different locations and get a different opposite section. Also we can see 3D images of those kinds of situation.49:50 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Here is examples so we can get X, Y, Z, different so called sections to investigate this aqueous flow and you can see this aqueous flow is different than this aqueous flow and this one, also this one. It's very interesting. This is most like extracellular fluid. So this extracellular fluid is able to stimulate lymphatic come. This direct lymphatic surrounding about this area, right? Then they're both fighting each other, or those kind of situations. Of course, you can go through many different sections and studies to understand what's going on. Also we can do before operation, we found out thats some areas have lymphatic, some area may lack those lymphatics. Also what is corrective condition. This one is also interesting. Now you see inflammatory cells and this is very interesting. This high, poor, reflective dots indicates inflammatory cells. This patient is before operation and we know he has some kind of inflammation already. But according to textbook, except children, all people can just have results and this one is amazing for me. We studied quite a lot one day after operation so then we can see previous initial acqueous is delivered in the subtenor, one day those acqueous is one two cross epicentre, which is in the conjunctiva stroma location. This is education for me, because I never noticed this kind of situation. Also, you can see in the Tenon's capsule, there is quite a lot of inflammatory cells in here. You can see people said, have more than 100 more so called protein molecules they can stimulate inflammation and scaling and the Tenon's capsule, maybe is most fibroblast cells is in here, right. Those cells are stimulated by aqueous all those guys, such as particularly TGF beta, can induce inflammatory scarring. This Tenon's capsule is being stimulated out of induced inflammatory cells. Those kind of off cuts we need a so called formal study look about longitudinal changes could be interesting.53:09 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Also, this six weeks about this is quite interesting. You can see this so called aqueous extracellular fluid, which is aqueous in here, and a lot of lymphatic come to clean out those moleculars. This patient appears much less inflammatory cells, which is very encouraging. Of course, we can find some kind of patient is when aqueous humour is accumulating in here is not like I just showed you before, extracellular fluid this type, so also scarring is formed. That kind of patient is ready for the treatment.54:03 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Let me talk about future work we plan to do, and definitely we like this machine to be used for every glaucoma clinic to do before or after operation, to monitor those things. This machine needs to be thinking about commercialisation, about those things. Also we need to make up a better technology to put this to be very close to lymphatic capillary and this is definitely two job we needed to do. Third job is hopefully we can get other people a pre stage group that are working in the lympho angiogenesis, extracellular fluid and interaction with lymphatic capillaries.55:11 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
There is a group did a very good work, and the other group is a study about lymphatic which we talk about is like evolution, left mini pump, like a heart. This function is another way to adjust. There is other group working very well in this stage, and also, very fortunately, drug companies, staff are involved about developing new drug for lymphatic capillary modulation and also fibrosis. Fibrosis mostly targets in the lung fibrosis, kidney fibrosis and the liver fibrosis so that produced about new drug, all those things we're looking for working with them about those things.56:11 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Under lymphatic, because there is two things to be found, brain, edoema and the heart muscle edoema lymphatic play significant roles. Drug is in the phase one, phase two, phase three study. We are looking for collaboration with them, and this is what we really like is to develop new drug to intervene. Eye drops to intervene, post operation.56:48 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
You may think about why ophthalmologists still keep doing glaucoma filtration operation to deal with conjunctiva, but there is some way without a deal with cojunctiva that people thinking about, but the most effective way is use orange system to do this job. This orange system is we call the aqueous system, including tribecular meshwork and the Schlemm's canal and also aqueous system. This is really interesting idea, and many people try to do it. Ten years ago we started this project. We are already looking for very short UV laser to do this job. You know, when [unknown] make chips, they use UV laser as well and this may be shorter still, wavelength laser. We can go through optic fibre delivery system because we needed to treat this tribecular meshwork and all those things. In fact, glaucoma, most pathologies happen in the inner wall of Schlemm's canal and this is only few microns problem.58:19 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Also we need to make a hole size to match our physiological resistance. It only need 50 microns, so we would really like to develop a system under then to make a 50 micron hole so then open Schemm's canal to achieve our operation success.58:41 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
We developed all lasers with all the conditional lasers so they use a frequency doubling to get our wavelength we needed so then put in the eye to do this work. We have achieved very well controlled abrasion, which is we use change about laser powers, change of course rate to get controllable abrasion. When laser power increase, this so called abrasion depth increase, and the post more will increase, and then we get all data and information to get a very precise operation. We already achieved, we can cut 50 micro holes and cut this area without the damage external wall of those kind of situation. Here is, I show you the evidence. We can not open hole. Also we cannot make Schlemm's Canal open up. Here is optical fibres. Previous, we would make a hole in this area. If I'm fighting this lasers, this air bubble, if can come out.1:00:27 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Professor Yu, we're running right out of time here. We need to wrap up pretty quickly.1:00:39 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, this is a laser. Then you can see air bubble come out from here so that means we can open Schlemm's canal. We finish all technique developed under those kind of situations. We would like to look for a commissioning partner, even though these kind of success techniques, we cannot do it ourselves.1:01:05 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Okay, we'll finish. This is our team to develop a microfistula, so we already appreciate their contribution and their work. We also would like to acknowledg our commissioning partner, such as AqueSys and AbbVie. I particularly like to acknowledge University College of London team who have helped us to build a new system. Also I would like to welcome more people in joining our fight against glaucoma and also I would like to acknowledge our NHMRC support. Also I would like to acknowledge the McCusker Glaucoma Centre. I have finished my talk.1:02:08 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Thank you very much. I mean, that was terrific, and such a great story of discovery, moving all the way to impact. We haven't got very much time but if anyone wants to put a question up on chat please do and we'll see if we can get it answered.1:02:25 Professor Steve Wesselingh
I guess my question would be, you know, fantastic research. I'm always interested in implementation. How have the ophthalmologists around Australia and around the world reacted to your work, and how much work is there to get them to buy into it and implement the amazing findings that you've made?1:02:52 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Our work is very closely linked to Australia and internationally. Since we were thinking about the 2 building machines to support Melbourne, Sydney, and other states, to building machine through to commercialisation, will apply and see ground, try to get this funding so then we can work in that's nothing less size internationally, we have to provide our evidence. Also encourage them to buy this machine. We have no commissioner yet, ss you know about this, commercialisation is not our academic person like to do it, but somehow we have to do it.1:03:52 Professor Steve Wesselingh
All right. As I said, we're now sort of 5 minutes over, so we do have to wrap up, but I'd just like to thank you for that fantastic presentation. This year, we're really looking at focusing on research discovery through to impact and I think your research showed so beautifully how you start with basic discovery science and then develop solutions that can be used in the clinic. I think that was so good. Thank you very, very much for that.1:04:23 Professor Steve Wesselingh
I'd like to thank everyone who joined us online, and also encourage people to tell others about it and that it's available on our website for people to watch at another time. I just wanted to also remind people that this year's lineup, particularly in our 90th anniversary, is going to include stories about discovery going through to impact. The next webinar will be on the 23* (*corrected) of March, and we'll focus on World Oral Health Day. I really encourage everyone to register and attend, but I just want to go back to Professor Yu and just an amazing story, terrific presentation. Thank you very much, Professor Yu.1:05:08 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Thank you for your encouragement. We will keep going up.1:05:12 Professor Steve Wesselingh
Well, I think you must. Yeah, absolutely.1:05:15 Professor Dao-Yi Yu AM
Thank you. Thank you. Bye.End of transcript.