 Joseph L. Demer, M.D., Ph.D. presented the annual David R. Stager, Sr. Lecture in Pediatric Ophthalmology & Adult Strabismus on February 2, 2009. Dr. Demer is the Leonard Apt Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurology, Director of the Ocular Motility Clinical Laboratory, and Chief of Comprehensive Ophthalmology Division at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California Los Angeles. He has received many awards and honors, including the 2003 ARVO Friedenwald Award, the Walt and Lily Disney Award for Amblyopia Research, and the Alcon Achievement Award. His lecture, entitled "Connective Tissue Surgery for Strabismus in the Young and the Old", provided a fascinating overview of his recent studies of orbital mechanics with magnetic resonance imaging. He presented evidence that much of the eye's kinematics, once thought to require brainstem coordination of eye muscle innervations, is determined by the orbital biomechanics of rectus muscle pulleys. Dr. Demer also addressed the clinical implications of his research. In particular, this new information on orbital pulley mechanics provides a new direction for surgical treatment of strabismus and the design of interventions that may be able to effect more subtle changes in muscle action than those currently available. |
