Eye diseases leading to blindness is one of the major concern of public health, and improving the prevention and treatment of these diseases is in line with the requirements of the social and economic development and technology development. According to the World Health Organization, China is one of the countries with the highest number of blind people in the world. China now has about 13,000,000 blind people, with an annual growth of 800,000. To curb this trend and ensure the sustainable development of people's health and national economy, it is imperative to prevent and treat main blinding eye diseases.

It is under this circumstance that the Zhejiang Provincial Key Lab for Prevention and Treatment of Main Blidning Eye Diseases was established. Its goal is to strengthen the interdisciplinary cooperation and research in the fields of ophthalmology, materials science and bio-engineering, make patent eligible products for treating blinding eye diseases, and better meet the health needs of the people.

Research focuses:

• Study the related genes and gene polymorphism of important eye diseases leading to blindness;

• Independently research and develop new ophthalmic implants for the prevention and treatment of eye diseases leading to blindness;

• Study the quality control and key technique standard of eye diseases leading to blindness.

It is expected to reveal the genetic basis of congenital and developmental eye diseases (such as congenital cataract) or genetic eye diseases (such as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc.), make new intraocular implants with independent intellectual property rights which can meet the ophthalmology application requirements in terms of surface morphology, physicochemical properties, drug sustained release rate and time of duration, and establish the standard of key techniques of treating eye diseases leading to blindness and applicable to the training of ophthalmologic surgeons at the grass-roots level.