Eye research needs vision
Research into eyes and eyesight in Aotearoa-New Zealand needs to be visionary.
Which is why the new Vision Research Foundation New Zealand (VRF) has been established – to move beyond the safe and incremental, to attract the funding and knowledge needed to make life-changing discoveries, and to unlock the potential medical talent shut out by inequity.
Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer founded the Foundation as a charitable trust in 2022 and is now its Scientific Director.
It was established with the support of a generous philanthropist and has since started to attract direct donations and bequests. Now the VRF has set up a philanthropic investment fund at Momentum Waikato, which is open for public donations from anywhere.
“We are at a time when technology is developing faster than most research ideas,” says Helen.
“The Vision Research Foundation is therefore aimed at using those rapidly developing technological advances to disrupt traditional modes of eye care and research.
“Our philosophy is that by challenging established paradigms we can make transformative discoveries in vision science."
Are there roads you don't like to drive on in the Waikato?
Once a year Jeff Penno removes drawing pins from a wall map pinpointing serious and fatal crashes his crews have attended, and starts again.
It’s a poignant reminder that not all our roads are up to the standard of the Waikato Expressway - which is so safe the Waikato road policing manager doesn’t need to deploy his team there regularly.
Have you been past the old theatre lately?
It was a spectacle that would have thrilled anyone’s inner three-year-old.
And, on Tuesday afternoon, some actual three and two-year-olds were lucky enough to be among those looking on as a pair of gigantic orange demolition excavators tore into the northern wall of Hamilton’s Founders Theatre in the manner of ravenous monsters.