PhD defence M.S. (Milly) Tedja

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

Myopia is a growing worldwide problem where the eye is too long. This causes blurred distance vision and increases the risk of later damage to the eye, which can ultimately lead to visual impairment. The condition arises from an interplay of inherited and environmental risk, such as doing a lot of near work and spending too little time outdoors. In this dissertation, the visual consequences as well as the genetic background of myopia were examined. 
Population research shows that the risk of visual impairment increases drastically as the eye grows longer; in extremely long eyes, 90% of people are visually impaired at a later age. Over a quarter of severely myopic individuals develop specific damage to the retina.
By analyzing the DNA of over 620,000 people, as many as 528 genetic factors associated with myopia were discovered. We observed that the genetic background of myopia largely overlaps between European and Asian people. The discovered genes regulate, among other things, the growth of the eye, the development of light-sensitive cells in the eye, and DNA transcription. We also found an important role for regulatory DNA elements (pieces of DNA that do not code for proteins). Although a genetic test in the clinic does not provide a better prediction than simply looking at parental myopia, this knowledge offers a major breakthrough. The identified genes serve as valuable targets for the development of new treatments to inhibit or prevent myopia in the future.