Professor Mark Gillies

Professor Mark Gillies, MB BS, PhD, FRANZCO, is Professor in the Department of Clinical Ophthalmology, The University of Sydney, and Group Leader, Macular Research Group, Save Sight Institute. He has extensive experience in leading and collaborating in clinical and laboratory research projects. He is the leader of the Fight Retinal Blindness! Project, an international observational study tracking outcomes of treatment for macular disease.

In 2015 Professor Mark Gillies was awarded a Macular Disease Foundation Australia Research Grant for $400,000 over three  years.

Professor Gillies' research project is entitled  'How to get the best outcomes of treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration with vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors: real world evidence'.

This project is a continuation of the "Fight Retinal Blindness!" (FRB!) study, which has been running since 2007. It involves a large web-based database tracking over 5000 patients being treated by over 50 ophthalmologists. More patients and clinicians are continually being added. The database provides a large repository of real world outcomes and enables testing of multiple clinical questions, comparing treatments and regimens for macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other similar conditions.

The project will provide strong, real-world evidence on several key clinical questions, including whether there is any difference in duration of effect between treatments, the effects of reducing treatment frequency, and recommendations that can be made to patients regarding longer term prognosis.