Jan Provis is Professor of Anatomy and Associate Dean in the ANU Medical School. She is Chair of Retina Australia’s Grants Assessment Committee, and member of the Scientific Advisory of the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia. Jan commenced her research career as Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney Department of Clinical Ophthalmology in 1980, studying development of the human retina. Between 1988 and 2003 she was a lecturer, senior lecturer and Associate Professor in Anatomy at the University of Sydney, while maintaining an honorary position in the Department of Clinical Ophthalmology studying development and aging of the primate retina. Jan moved to the ANU in 2004, and since that time has focused on identification of the genes that regulate development of human central retina, and the factors that destabilize central retina and promote AMD. Jan’s work provides a broad perspective on how the macular / foveal part of the primate retina has evolved, how it develops, the molecular factors involved, the functional constraints, and why the macula is vulnerable to degeneration. She has co-edited a major text on Macular Degeneration, participates in a number of national and international collaborations, and most recently was part of an international team that identified the cellular mechanism causing death of retinal pigment epithelial cells in the dry form of AMD.

1. Inhibition of the complement cascade in a light damage model of dry macular degeneration

2. Use of 670 nm light irriadiation to slow retinal degenerations

3. Understanding the visual significance of the fovea centralis