Developing innovative techniques for research and diagnostics

01/01/2027 to 30/09/2028

This project aims at expanding our AI tools for analyzing large ophthalmic datasets, to implement them in the analysis of patient data from different cohorts, as well as to develop new techniques. We will focus on five specific aims: In Aim1, we will apply our newly developed software to segment and identify single meibomian glands and relate it to clinical data of dry eye disease; in Aim2, we will refine our model to detect and segment endothelial cells within microscopy images of the corneal endothelium and apply it to characterize the morphological structure of corneal endothelial cells in cell culture in and patient samples; in Aim3, we will set up an analysis pipeline for retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells; in Aim4, we will develop an automated method to analyze histology images of the retina; and in Aim5, we will implement and improve methods to analyze OCT angiography (OCTA) images.