The division of Paediatric Ophthalmology at the MCH has a very active research and research-training program.
Dr. Koenekoop is a PI at the Center for Innovative Medicine (CIM). He and his clinical trials teams are currently involved in several new human clinical treatment trials, including stem cell treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, gene therapy for Choroideremia and XRP, gene editing for RP, and drug therapies for Leber congenital amaurosis (oral retinoid) and RP (NAC attack with Johns Hopkins and NIH). Natural history studies are done with LSU (Dr Lentz) for patients with USH1C and the Acadian founder mutation. A natural history study, parallel to a drug discovery study are performed on patients with Peroxisomal disease with Dr. Nancy Braverman and her team. Some studies are supported by sponsors, the MCH Foundation, others by NIH and CIHR.
He also heads the 91社区 Ocular Genetics Laboratory and Clinic, where studies are done to discover new genes for blindness such as retinal degenerations. Using genomic and molecular genetic technologies, he is interested in identifying the retinal disease pathways and mechanisms in order to develop novel treatments. His lab is funded by the Montreal Children鈥檚 Hospital FOUNDATION, CIHR, FFB-Canada, NIH, Reseau Vision, VHRN and FRSQ. His program trains students, residents and fellows. This basic science work is performed in the newly created MUHC RI (Center for Translational Biology).
Dr. Falcao has a special expertise in engineering and is developing a digital synoptophore to measure lid and eye movements.