Effects of a low humidity environment and visual tasking on tear film protein composition

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Tears are a readily available body fluid that can be easily collected without causing any discomfort to the patient. The collected tears can be analyzed in the laboratory and the results obtained from this analysis have the potential to tell us a great deal about our health. Tear tests, such as the level of various proteins, are used to determine whether people have ocular problems such as dry eye. Inflamax Research Inc is a Canadian company which has developed an Environmental Exposure Chamber (EEC) at 3121 Universal Drive, Mississauga, Ontario, which is one of only a handful designed for ocular research in the world and the only one in Canada. The EEC is an innovative facility designed to control temperature, RH and air flow in order to establish standardized and reproducible environments for the study of dry eye. Tears will be collected from patients before and exposure in the environmental chamber and tears will be analyzed using novel techniques in the Centre for Contact Lens Research Biological Sciences laboratory and the differences in these conditions will be studied. The results from this project will provide valuable data on the role of controlled humidity, temperature, airflow, lighting and visual tasking in altering the tear film protein composition and the results from this study will have important biotechnology and biomedical applications for Canada.