ANZ research collaborators Dr Maria Markoulli, Dr Stuti Misra, A/Prof Jennifer Craig and Dr Laura Downie

Honolulu in the 50^th state of the United States of America, Hawai’i, hosted the 2018 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) conference from 29 April to 3 May this year. About 11,000 delegates attended this always popular annual event, one of the most important meetings in any ophthalmology, optometry or vision science researcher’s calendar.

The location was a stark difference from last year’s Baltimore gathering (especially in terms of weather - enough said!). Perhaps due to this or perhaps to the ease of the now direct flights between New Zealand and Honolulu, a large contingent from the University of Auckland’s Department of Ophthalmology and School of Optometry and Vision Science attended, including Professor Dipika Patel, Associate Professors Jennifer Craig and Sam Schwarzkopf and Drs Ilva Rupenthal, Joanna Black, Jie Zhang, James Slater and Andrew Collins.

The conference theme, ‘Stand strong for science: Stand for strong vision science’, had an undertone of politics to it, suggesting this was not just an ordinary ARVO meeting. Besides the normal symposia, mini-symposia, workshops, special interest group meetings and poster presentations, there were several ‘pre-meetings’ which ran before and alongside the main conference. One of them was the joint KMOS-LIME (Korean Meibomian Ocular Surface-Lid and Meibomian Gland Working Group) meeting. A/Prof Jennifer Craig was the keynote speaker at this session, sharing the University’s research into the predisposition of the Asian eye to meibomian gland dysfunction, an apt topic for an Asian mini-conference!

Apart from the current buzzwords at many of this year’s conferences - ‘deep learning’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ - gene editing and repair dominated this year’s ARVO meeting. Within this theme, Professor Jennifer Doudna from UC Berkeley delivered the keynote speech on ‘CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing: Biology, Technology and Ethics’. She discussed how this revolutionary piece of technology could assist researchers and clinicians in treating HIV, sickle cell disease and muscular dystrophy.

Another keynote speaker was Professor Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Centre for Embryogenic Cell and Gene Therapy of Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). Prof Mitalipov gave a rather fascinating presentation on IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) and novel germline gene repair in early pre-implantation embryos.

Our own ophthalmology team presented a variety of topics ranging from ocular imaging, corneal stem cells and dry eye to diabetes, choroidal neovascularisation, intravitreal pharmokinetics and the genetic characterisation of North Carolina macular dystrophy. Our optometry team also gave a significant number of presentations covering neonatal hyperglycaemia, amblyopia, visual acuity and lenticular optics.

No international meeting is complete without connecting and re-connecting with new and existing collaborators, a highlight of these gatherings. We discussed some existing and new projects with our American collaborators Professor Joseph Mankowski (Johns Hopkins University) and Dr Jonathan Oakley (Voxeleron LLC). Our across-the-ditch collaborators, Drs Maria Markoulli and Laura Downie, were also at ARVO and we didn’t miss the opportunity to discuss our ongoing projects.

Unfortunately, however, on 3 May Hawai'i’s Big Island volcano, Kilauea, erupted putting residents and visitors on edge. Although all the conference delegates were safe in far away Honolulu, it caused a sense of worry, which pervaded the conference. There were no disruptions to flights, but it did affect the travel plans of a number of delegates who had been planning to visit the volcano and add some holiday time to their conference. Fortunately, we all made it back home safe and sound!

For the first time, the next ARVO meeting will be held outside the USA, on Canada’s west coast in the city of Vancouver. Yet again, the ease of travel with direct flights to this city from Auckland will surely attract a significant number of New Zealand eye researchers and clinicians.

Dr Stuti Misra is a lecturer in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Auckland. Her research revolves around corneal imaging, particularly in-vivo confocal microscopy in corneal disorders and systemic diseases, wide-field imaging and paediatric ocular abnormalities.