Zhichao Wu, PhD

Dr Wu is an optometrist and clinical researcher who completed his PhD at the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA), developing and evaluating novel clinical biomarkers for the early stages of age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of irreversible vision loss worldwide. He was awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in the PhD Thesis, and subsequently continued pursuing research in the development of novel clinical biomarkers in glaucoma, another leading cause of vision loss. He was awarded the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Neil Hamilton Fairley Overseas Clinical Research Fellowship for this work, which provided him with the opportunity to work with internationally renowned leaders in this field at the University of California, San Diego and Columbia University. He has returned to CERA in 2018 to further research in the development of improved clinical structural and functional biomarkers for the early stages of blinding eye diseases, with the hope of using them to expedite clinical trials of emerging treatments and to improve the clinical management of these diseases.