Shelby Temple Email Address

Enterprise Fellow

Official university site with information on undergraduate and postgraduate courses, research, teaching, study and departments. Located in Bristol, in the South West of England.

I am a vision researcher. Recently, my research led to the invention of a rapid, affordable and non-invasive way to assess macular pigments in the human eye. Macular pigments play an important role in visual function and disease prevention. Having a healthy macular pigment density improves contrast sensitivity, reduces glare and can lower a persons risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) later in life. AMD is the leading cause of incurable blindness in the western world affecting more than 10% of people over the age of 65, and results in central vision loss, thus the inability to read, drive or see details of loved ones when you look at them. The incidence of AMD is on the rise due to people living longer and various other risk factors (smoking, poor diet, exposure to blue and UV light). But there is something you can do to protect yourself, the problem is that most of us don't even know we are at risk. My new technology can be used to measure your macular pigments in less than a minute to determine if this risk factor is one that you need to deal with to reduce your risk of going blind later in life.