The Charles F. Prentice Award Lecture 2014: A 50-Year Research Journey: Giants and Great Collaborators

Abstract

This article, an edited version of the 2014 Charles F. Prentice Medal presentation, recounts my 50-year journey in research, from graduation in 1965 to PhD to 2015. The most important lessons I have learned are that great people, "Giants" as I call them, are generous of spirit, creative, insightful, sharing, and caring, and second, that collaboration is really the only way to do what I want to get done. I have been very fortunate to have worked with many outstanding people. As someone said to me at the Prentice Medal presentation, "I don't like you very much but the people you work with are wonderful."My journey started with a PhD investigation into seeing if orthokeratology could control myopia at the City University London in 1966. It then moved to Australia where all aspects of contact lenses were researched to try to make contact lenses safer and more effective by understanding the cornea and anterior eye systems. That journey has now turned to making contact lenses the best they can be to slow the progress of myopia. An extremely high proportion of people who are involved with global eye care initiatives and ambitious projects to develop treatments and interventions for the major vision problems impacting the world are a joy to work with. Evidence-based systems for delivering vision to the more than 600 million people globally that are blind or vision impaired because of uncorrected refractive error have involved amazing people and collaborations. This article pays tribute to the generosity and humanity of my family and the Giants in and outside the field, and many more not so well known, and the people I work with, who have punctuated and greatly enriched this journey and made many of the scientific advances documented here possible.