Projects

  • Jie Jin’s work during her PhD documented that older people with visual impairment had a higher mortality rate compared to those who had normal vision, after consideration of age and co-morbidities. This first-time reported observation has been confirmed later in multiple populations. Subsequently, Jie Jin led two projects documenting in two different cohort samples that, among older people with visual impairment due to age-related cataract, those who had visual impairment corrected via cataract surgery had a better survival compared to those who either had not had surgery or had surgery but visual impairment could not be uncorrected.
  • Jie Jin and the team at the Centre for Vision Research had led a 5-year follow-up study of cataract surgical patients. Observations from this cohort provided evidence to clarify a longstanding, clinically relevant controversy: i.e., eyes after cataract surgery are not at an increased risk of AMD development or progression.
  • One of Jie Jin’s main research focuses is the joint contributions of multiple factors to risk of AMD, such as factors influencing a person’s AMD risk depending on his/her genetic susceptibility to AMD, and factors that are modifiable. Preliminary findings from two population-based cohorts suggest that some dietary antioxidants and food items may be able to reduce risk of AMD in persons carrying high genetic risk. These consistent observations in two cohort samples need to be further confirmed in independent samples.
  • Jie Jin has also collaborated with researchers outside the eye to explore the value of retinal imaging and retinal vascular structural changes in understanding acute stroke subtypes and small vessel disease components of systemic conditions.