Our department has research expertise in the areas of telemedicine, glaucoma, health services, eye health education, collaborative programs, and community integration.

In 2000, the Optic Nerve Imaging Center (ONIC) was developed within the Glaucoma Service to provide state of the art imaging for clinical and research needs. Over the past 12 years this infrastructure has facilitated the acquisition of over $10.1 million in federally funded research grants (NIH, CDC) and approximately $3 million in funding for clinical trials in ophthalmology, optometry, neurology, and medicine. The ONIC has been successfully translated into clinical practice with the development of race-specific normative data that is now used in the HRT III, a commonly used imaging device in clinical practice.

Americans have consistently identified fear of vision loss as second only to fear of cancer in public opinion polls conducted over the past 40 years. The amelioration of eye diseases that cause vision impairment is thus a premier public health priority for the American public. The Ophthalmology Clinical Research Unit (CRU) is literally the catalyst for patient-oriented programs at UAB that focus on eye disease and vision impairment. Since its inception in 2002, the CRU infrastructure has facilitated the acquisition and conduct of grants and contracts on eye disease and vision impairment totaling $25 million since its inception.