Vision allows writer back into the light

THE eyesight of one of the nation's best-loved authors, Colleen McCullough, has been saved by a pioneering treatment developed by an Australian ophthalmologist that is now being used around the world. By the time McCullough came to consult Sydney's Mark Gillies about five years ago, she had lost most of the sight in her left eye and was starting to go blind in her right eye. Dr Gillies, the first Australian ophthalmologist to receive a PhD and director of the retinal therapeutics research group at the University of Sydney's Save Sight Institute, admitted he was nervous about his new patient. "I could see the headlines," he said. "Eye doctor blinds Australia's greatest novelist." Instead, Dr Gillies's research saved McCullough's sight. His group has pioneered injecting steroids into the eye to stop bleeding in the retina, the... [read full story]