Supervisors: Professor Pete Williams, Professor Keith Martin, Dr Luis Alarcon-Martinez and Dr Richard Eva (King’s College London)

Email: pete.williams@unimelb.edu.au

Suitable for: PhD, MPhil or Honours

Project Start: June-September 2026

Scholarship available: Domestic applicants may be eligible to apply for the RB McComas Research Scholarship in Ophthalmology – a full-stipend scholarship of up to 3.5 years – with applications closing on February 8, 2026.

Glaucoma is a complex, multifactorial disease affecting ~80 million people worldwide and is the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Glaucoma is characterized by the progressive dysfunction and irreversible loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs; the output neuron of the retina). Age, genetics, and high intraocular pressure (IOP) are major risk factors.

With an increasingly aged population, glaucoma will continue to be a significant health and economic burden. Current treatment strategies only target IOP lowering (relevant in ~60% of patients). 10-40% of treated patients will go blind in at least one eye.

The goal of this PhD studentship is to identify molecular changes in the protected and regenerating optic nerve following injury. The student will use two models of optic nerve injury, gene and drug therapy, and metabolomics/lipidomics to develop a novel clinically translational therapy.

Specifically, the student will:

• Combine regenerative gene therapies with a neuroprotective treatment that has progressed to Phase III clinical trials (oral nicotinamide treatment)
• Test a novel dual gene therapy construct combining pro-regenerative and neuroprotective to develop a one dose treatment with relevance for different stages of glaucoma
• Perform metabolomics/lipidomics across the retinal ganglion cell axis to critically assess our metabolic hypothesis following glaucoma-related injury, with and without treatment.

Under the expert supervision of the collaborative team of Professor Pete Williams, Professor Keith Martin, Dr Luis Alarcon-Martinez and Dr Richard Eva, the student will address the following question: Can we simultaneously target neuroprotection and axon regeneration to develop a comprehensive, single dose treatment for glaucoma and optic neuropathy?

This studentship capitalises on the teams’ recent findings that targeting NAD can prevent degeneration in animal models and restore vision glaucoma patients, and that Protrudin can stimulate long-range RGC axon regeneration.

Key papers

Reviews:

• Tribble JR, Hui F, Quintero El Hajji S, Bell K, Di Polo A, Williams PA. “Neuroprotection in glaucoma: Mechanisms beyond intraocular pressure lowering”. Molecular Aspects of Medicine. 2023 (doi: 10.1016/j.mam.2023.101193)

Pre-clinical:

• Tribble JR*, Jöe M*, Varricchio C, Otmani A, Canovai A, Habchi B, Daskalakis E, Chaleckis R, Loreto A, Gilley J, Wheelock CE, Jóhannesson G, Wong RCB, Coleman MP, Brancale A, Williams PA. “NMNAT2 is a druggable target to drive neuronal NAD production”. Nature Communications. 2024 (doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-50354-5), * co-first author
• Tribble JR, Otmani A, Sun S, Ellis S, Cimaglia G, Vohra R, Jӧe M, Lardner E, Venkataraman AP, Domínguez-Vicent A, Kokkali E, Rho S, G Jóhannesson, Burgess RW, Fuerst PG, Brautaset R, Kolko M, Morgan JE Crowston JG, Votruba M, Williams PA. “Nicotinamide provides neuroprotection in glaucoma by protecting against mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction”. Redox Biology. 2021 (doi: 10.1016/j.redox.2021.101988)
• Harder JM, Guymer C, Wood JPM, Daskalakis E, Chidlow G, Zhang C, Balasubramanian R, Cardozo BH, Foxworth NE, Deering KE, Ouellette TB, Montgomery C, Wheelock CE, Casson RJ, Williams PA†, John SWM†. “Disturbed glucose and pyruvate metabolism in glaucoma with neuroprotection by pyruvate or rapamycin”. PNAS. 2020 (doi: 10.1073/pnas.2014213117), † corresponding authors
• Petrova V, Pearson CS, Ching J, Tribble JR, Solano AG, Yang Y, Love FM, Watt RJ, Osborne A, Reid E, Williams PA, Martin KR, Geller HM, Eva R, Fawcett JW. “Protrudin functions from the endoplasmic reticulum to support axon regeneration in the adult CNS”. Nature Communications. 2020 (doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19436-y)
• Williams PA, Harder JM, Foxworth NE, Cochran KE, Philip VM, Porciatti V, Smithies O, John SWM. “Vitamin B3 modulates mitochondrial vulnerability and prevents glaucoma in aged mice”. Science. 2017 (doi: 10.1126/science.aal0092)

Clinical:

• Petriti B, Rabiolo A, Chau KY, Williams PA, Montesano G, Lascaratos G, Garway-Heath D. “Peripheral blood mononuclear cell respiratory function is associated with progressive glaucomatous vision loss”. Nature Medicine. 2024 (doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-03068-6)
• Hui F, Tang J, Williams PA, McGuinness MB, Hadoux X, Casson RJ, Coote M, Trounce IA, Martin KR, van Wijngaarden P, Crowston JG. “Improvement in inner retinal function in glaucoma in response to nicotinamide (vitamin B3) supplementation: A crossover randomized clinical trial”. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology. 2020 (doi: 10.1111/ceo.13818)