Women Ophthalmological Society (WOS) successfully launched “Women in Research (WIN R), an initiative where women ophthalmologists across the country will be provided a platform to initiate and carry out research studies.
WOS has its own registered independent ethics committee which is open to all WOS members to carry out their studies.
WINR has 2 arms, The Clinical research arm and the Molecular research arm.
The Clinical Research Arm was launched at the 2nd Annual Conference of WOS at Jaipur on 24th November 2017. The launch showed active participation from many women ophthalmologists from all over the country. They presented their research ideas before a panel of experts. These experts are one of the most important and established ophthalmologists, each one them proficient in their filed.
A second session was held at All India Ophthalmological Society Conference on 25th February, 2018 at Coimbatore.
The Molecular Arm was launched on April 11th, 2018 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi in the august presence of Dr. Mahesh Sharma; Member Parliament and Minister of State for Culture, Tourism, Climate, Environment and Forest and many other prominent dignitaries
The launch also included a certified training course for all the women ophthalmologists in Clinical and Molecular Research Methodology.
Tirupati eye Centre located in Noida, UP is the secretariat of Women Ophthalmological Society. The centre set up a Biorepository for storage of samples collected from the eye which is being further used to carry out research studies. The Biorepository caters to all women ophthalmologists in New Delhi and neighboring regions.
The 1st molecular study was conducted with 13 participants. It was entitled “Prevalence of ocular surface dysfunction/ dry eye and its correlation with the biomarkers and quality of life in patients presenting for cataract surgery”. The study was successfully conducted.
PhD collaboration
WINR (WOS) collaborated with Swineburne University, Australia for PhD in ophthalmology in March 2020. This happened during a meeting held in collaboration with Department of Science and Technology, Delhi at New Delhi in March 2020
RED Group
Women in research launched a new group called the Rare eye Diseases (RED) group in October 2020 with the following objectives
- To form a common cloud-based template customized as per the requirement of the individual disease that includes demographic data, clinical history, examination findings, imaging and other documentation as may be the need of the individual condition.
- To give a common platform to all ophthalmologists working in private, government hospitals or institutional set up to record and report their cases of rare eye disorders.
- To find drugs or treatment modalities for rare eye diseases from the existing therapeutics as well as to initiate new drug discoveries for rare eye diseases.
- To provide genetic counselling, rehabilitation and support to patients and families of those affected with these rare