AAOF large grant for AI in Myopia

AAOF large grant for AI in Myopia 

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF OPTOMETRY FOUNDATION announces $1.5 million US$ open-science grant for studies of visual experience and myopia in partnership with meta reality labs

The American Academy of Optometry Foundation (AAOF) and Meta Reality Labs will fund an open-science research initiative to accelerate the study of visual experience as it impacts myopia onset and progression. This collaboration will fund three independent research studies of quantified longitudinal visual experience and subsequent myopia outcomes, totaling $1.5 million USD.

“In partnership with Meta Reality Labs, AAOF is pleased to announce this open-science research initiative,” said AAOF President, Dr. Rachel A. “Stacey” Coulter. “This industry-sponsored research opportunity opens the door to transformative partnerships, where academic rigor meets real-world application, to drive innovation and create solutions to benefit both science and society.”

While there have been many valuable studies on visual experience, they have typically operated independently, with no way to aggregate the data between them to solve this challenging research problem at scale. To address this, the AAOF and Meta are embracing an open-science model for this research grant. Researchers will make not only their publications publicly available but also the data behind them according to the FAIR data principles, along with metadata artifacts necessary to interpret them. This will allow for additional comparison and harmonization, reproducibility, and federated analysis of these datasets by other researchers enabling a collaborative effort to solve the riddle of visual experience’s role in myopia development.

The submission criteria and application window for these awards will be announced during Academy 2024 Indianapolis, the American Academy of Optometry’s annual meeting, at the AAOF’s Awards Celebration Brunch on Saturday, November 9.