Alice Brandli

Dr. Brandli received her Ph.D. from the Department of Physiology at the University of Sydney in 2016 for investigating the effect of body wide protection (remote ischemic conditioning) on eye health. Remote ischemic conditioning is a form of hormesis that was shown by Dr. Brandli to protective against retinal degeneration. The mechanism by which remote ischemic conditioning maybe acting was through the release of BDNF, a potent neurotrophin that was shown to be elevated in blood and retinal tissue following remote ischemic conditioning. In 2015 prior to submitting her PhD she contributed to the Bionic Eye Project, a large collaborative project undertaken between Bionic Institute and the Center for Eye Research Australia. Dr. Brandli helped to develop a retinal prothesis prototype that has since been tested to restore sight in a clinical trial for patients affected by retinis pigmentosa.

Dr Brandli joined the laboratory of Prof. Erica Fletcher to develop an animal model of advanced age-related macular degeneration. Age related Macular degeneration is a degenerative eye disease that affects central vision (e.g. reading) that can result in blindness in it's advanced form. It affects older Australians and there are approximately 1 million Australians understood to have some sign of macular degeneration.  In 2018, Dr. Brandli was awarded a NHMRC ECF to study the role of estrogen on advanced macular degeneration. Dr. Brandli research into advanced age-related macular degeneration has lead her to also investigating the systemic immune system, which appears to be a key modifier of eye health. Understanding the adaptive immune system and how it modifies the local eye environment is a driver of Dr. Brandli's research.