Dr Flora Hui

Imagine silently losing vision as you go about daily life, until one day at a regular eye test you are told you have glaucoma, a condition affecting the nerve cells in your eyes that can rob you of your sight. This is how many people with glaucoma are diagnosed, and it is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide.

Dr Flora Hui is interested in finding new treatments and ways to help us detect glaucoma earlier and its progression faster. She’s an optometrist, balancing life as both a clinician and a scientist. Flora is currently working on a clinical trial on vitamin B3 (nicotinamide), to see whether taking nicotinamide can help support the nerve cells to produce energy more efficiently. This can mean that nerve cells can stay healthier for longer with the potential to slow down the condition and help preserve someone’s vision.

She is also Co-Chair of the Early to Mid-Career Academics Association at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee at the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA), dedicated to supporting early career researchers in STEM. She is currently a Research Fellow at CERA and the University of Melbourne.