Dr Kendrick Co SHIH

The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong SAR

I would highly recommend aspiring clinician-scientists to take this opportunity to identify and learn from one of many world class scientific mentors of the Asia Cornea Society.

It was my honour and privilege to be a recipient of the Asia Cornea Society Santen-Asia Educational Grant for my two-week research observership at the Singapore National Eye Centre between 15th - 26th of January 2018. As an aspiring clinician-scientist with an avid interest in sight-threatening ocular surface diseases, I applied to conduct my attachment at centre’s renowned ocular surface/ dry eye research team under the supervision of Associate Professor Louis Tong. My aim during the attachment was to learn to establish a similar ocular surface research and clinical service, in terms of data/sample collection, patient workflow and integration with laboratory research.

I had clinical observership at Osaka University Medical School for 2 weeks, from 26th February 2018 to 9th March 2018 and another 2 weeks clinical observership at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine from 12th March 2018 to 23rd March 2018.

I first met Dr. Louis Tong at the 2014 Asia Cornea Society bi-annual meeting in Taipei and quickly found that he was a knowledgeable scientific mentor who was always generous with his time and expertise. We set up a collaborative working relationship and were very privileged to have joint publications in Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Nutrition and Diabetes and Journal of Inflammation as fruits of our labour. However, in order to take our research work to the next level, I had to establish a similar integrated research and clinical service in ocular surface diseases in my institution. Specifically, we were planning to develop 1) a new dry eye disease index that integrates a multiplier according to level of treatment 2) a biobank of microbiome samples in patients with primary Sjogren syndrome and 3) new methods of ocular immunomodulation through treatment of intestinal dysbiosis. I spent my two weeks in Dr. Tong’s dry eye clinic sessions, holding brainstorming sessions on our current and future projects, meeting with potential local collaborators and working with Dr. Tong’s translational research team in the laboratory. The time and environment was a perfect opportunity to foster inter-institutional collaborative research work in ocular surface diseases. We were even able to initiate a discussion to hold a joint PhD program between the two institutions. While the time at the institution was short, it was crucial in laying down the ground work for research over the next decade and beyond.

I would highly recommend aspiring clinician-scientists to take this opportunity to identify and learn from one of many world class scientific mentors of the Asia Cornea Society. As much as it is an opportunity to learn, it is a unique chance to initiate a long-lasting collaboration.