CERA

About

Dr Jwu Jin Khong

Head of Oculoplastic and Thyroid Eye Disease Research

Dr Jwu Jin (JJ) Khong is the Head of Oculoplastic and Thyroid Eye Disease Research at CERA. Her research focus is on investigating new treatment strategies for thyroid eye disease.

Dr Jwu Jin Khong

Head of Oculoplastic and Thyroid Eye Disease Research

PhD, MMed, MBBS (Hons), FRANZCO, FANZSOPS

Dr JJ Khong is a clinician scientist specialising in the field of oculoplastics. She is a Senior Research Fellow at CERA and a Clinical Senior Fellow at The University of Melbourne Department of Surgery.

Her research is focused on developing new treatments to prevent progression of thyroid eye disease (TED), a debilitating eye condition associated with autoimmune thyroid conditions, affecting one in four patients with Graves’ hyperthyroidism. Dr Khong is a principal investigator for multiple international clinical trials, which explore efficacy and safety of immunotherapy, developed based on disease mechanism.

She established the Australian Thyroid Associated Orbitopathy Research (ATOR) Database for exploring risk factors and genetic susceptibility in TED, which remains a rich resource for characterizing genomic, transcriptomic and proteomics profile in TED.

Supported by philanthropic funding from CERA and a Research Project Grant from The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital (RVEEH), Dr Khong is investigating determinant of site susceptibility for TED to understand why certain eye tissues are more likely affected than the other.

Her unit, in collaboration with industry partners, is working on establishing prototypal TED model for translational work.

Clinically, Dr JJ Khong specialises in treatment of orbital, plastic and lacrimal (OPAL) conditions, and oculoplastic surgery.  She is a senior consultant ophthalmologist at The RVEEH OPAL Unit, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Austin Hospital.

Dr Khong is a fellow of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Ophthalmic Plastic Surgeons (ANZSOPS), an international member of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS) and International Thyroid Eye Disease Society (ITEDS).

She is an experienced research supervisor for Doctor of Medicine (MD) research scholars, graduate and postgraduate students and a mentor for vocational ophthalmology trainees.

Key research questions
  • Are genes expressed differently in tissues surrounding the eye in TED which are amendable to targeted treatment?
  • Can we find biomarkers to predict which patients are most at risk of developing severe TED?
  • How does smoking affect oxidative stress in TED, and therefore can the early use of antioxidants slow down progression of TED?
  • Can we design, engineer and test new molecules in pre-clinical and clinical trials to reverse severity of TED and ultimately improve quality of life in patients with TED?
  • Can we estimate the incidence of TED and sight threatening TED in Australia using a national, multi-centre approach?

Current projects

Selected publications

My team

Key collaborators

Funding and support

Current projects

  • Determining tissue zonation in thyroid eye disease as a determinant of site-specific susceptibility.
  • Investigating the role of oxidative stress and smoking in inducing Thyroid Eye Disease.
  • Investigating potential therapeutic potential of investigational small molecules in an ex-vivo TED model.
  • Australian Experience with dysthyroid optic neuropathy: a multi-centre retrospective study.

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