Vance Jaeger
University of Louisville, KY·Chemistry
Dry eye syndrome affects more than 7 million Americans and can cause chronic pain and blurred vision. It starts when the thin film of tears covering the eye becomes unstable.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biophysics
Engineering
- Topics
dry eye syndrome
dry eye disease
tear film
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Build a physics-based molecular dynamics model of the tear film lipid layer, the thin oily sheet atop tears, that captures how its molecules arrange at the air and water surfaces.
- Validate the simulated lipid layer by calculating physical properties from simulation snapshots and energies and matching them to experimental observations.
- Use the validated model to test competing hypotheses about how changes in lipid layer makeup, thickness and arrangement destabilize the tear film in dry eye syndrome.
More about the research
On top of that film sits the tear film lipid layer, an extremely thin, ordered sheet of oily molecules separating the tears from the air. Researchers disagree about what this layer does and how changes in it make tears break up. Each competing idea points to a different treatment, such as boosting tear production, adjusting the oil glands or adding lipid eye drops. The debate persists because current experiments cannot see how the layer's molecules are arranged. Several different arrangements can give the same experimental signal.
Why it matters
A detailed molecular picture of the tear film lipid layer could help settle debates about what causes dry eye syndrome, which affects over 7 million Americans. Knowing which explanation holds could guide the choice among treatment strategies, such as stimulating tears, targeting the eye's oil glands or lipid-based eye drops. Over time, this could lead to better-designed therapies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of Louisville: 15 labs on PI Pages, $225M a year on research, 159 research doctorates a year.
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