Associate Professor Paula Yu’s research is mainly focused on vascular biology, physiology and pharmacology. Associate Professor Yu works within a group involved in researching retinal metabolism and vascular supply in healthy and diseased eyes, and the development of therapeutics and diagnostics for retinal diseases and glaucoma.
Education/academic qualifications/roles responsibilities
- Bachelor of Science with honours, UWA (1992)
- PhD, UWA (2001)
- Research Fellow LEI (2007)
- Research Assistant Professor LEI (2009)
- Research Associate Professor (2015)
Grants/scholarships/funding overview
- Assisted in securing competitive grants to the value of more than $8 million.
- Associate Investigator on successive NHMRC program grants, 2002-2006, 2007-2011
- Chief investigator NHMRC equipment grant, 2009
- Chief Investigator 3 Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia grants 2005, 2008-9, 2011
Research Activity
Associate Professor Yu’s research is centered on the retinal vasculature and metabolism, and its adaptation in health and disease. Adapting technologies used in the research group and combining with knowledge have gained from anatomy and histology, she developed the micro-cannulation perfusion fixation technique to study the ocular vasculature. This technique enabled the intact retinal and choroidal microvasculature to be visualized within its intact 3D retinal neural structure at a cellular level.
This technique was published in 2009 and has been instrumental to 22 subsequent publications that have arisen from the use of this technique to study various parts of the ocular vasculature. Another aspect of Associate Professor Yu’s research is in the application of lasers in the development of microsurgical techniques in the eye.
Leading Publications
- Yu D-Y, Cringle SJ, Balaratnasingam C, Morgan WH, Yu PK, Su E-N (2013). Retinal ganglion cells: Energetics, compartmentation, axonal transport, cytoskeletons and vulnerability. Prog Retin Eye Res 36:217-46. [67]
- Yu D-Y, Yu PK, Cringle, Kang MH, Su E-N (2014). Functional and morphological characteristics of the retinal and choroidal vasculature. Prog Retin Eye Res 40:53-93. [41]
- Yu, P.K., Mammo, Z., Balaratnasingam, C., Yu, D.Y. (2018). Quantitative study of the macular microvasculature in human donor eyes. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 59, 108-116.
- Yu P.K., McAllister, I.L., Morgan, W.H., Cringle, S.J., and Yu, D.Y. (2017). Inter-relationship of arterial supply to human retina, choroid and optic nerve head using micro perfusion and labeling. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 58, 3565-3574.
- Yu PK, Balaratnasingam C, Xu J, Morgan WH, Mammo Z, Han S, Mackenzie PJ, Merkur AB, Kirker AW, Albiani DA, Sarunic MV, Yu D-Y (2015). Label-free density measurements of radial peripapillary capillaries in the human retina. PLoS ONE 10(8):e0135151. [22]
To read more publications from this researcher, go to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.
