Dr Gullapalli N Rao, LVPEI’s Founder and Chair, announced the following Centres of Excellence that, he said, “Are a progression of the institute’s measure of expertise, best practices and cutting-edge capabilities accumulated over the past 25 years of dedicated service in the elimination of avoidable blindness. As part of LVPEI, these institutes will encompass care from primary to advanced tertiary care, education, research, public health, planning and policy, built on the foundation of LVPEI’s vision of Excellence with Equity.”
Academy for Eye Care Education
Institute for Regenerative Ophthalmology
Child Sight Institute
Institute for Eye Care for the Elderly
Institute for Eye Cancer
Centre of Excellence in Eye Banking
These Centres of Excellence represent many unique features that focus on the most relevant challenges, especially concerning the neglected, vulnerable, and underserved populations.
As a head start to the launch of “LVPEI - Next 25” is the research paper publication of a Wellcome Trust funded initiative between LVPEI and the University of Sheffield that announces a breakthrough cheaper technique to restore vision for blindness due to chemical burns. Chemical burns cause permanent damage of the limbal stem cells of the eye, resulting in irreversible blindness, but not anymore.
Dr Virender Sangwan, Director of Clinical Research at LVPEI and Head of the proposed Institute for Regenerative Ophthalmology, has been working successfully for the past several years with regenerating corneal epithelium in the Stem Cell Laboratory at LVPEI, and now aspires to test out the simplified, more affordable and accessible version of the same technology for blind patients in India and the world.
About L V Prasad Eye Institute : The L V Prasad Eye Institute provides high quality comprehensive eye care to all people; provides sight enhancement and rehabilitation services at the Institute and through its rural eye health network, offers professional ophthalmic training at all levels; and conducts cutting-edge eye care research. The Institute is a World Health Organization (WHO) Center for the Prevention of Blindness and a Global Resource Center for VISION 2020, a worldwide initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness led by WHO and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. For further information, visit the Institute’s website, www.lvpei.org.
