Professor Nick Di Girolamo is a research-focused academic leading an internationally recognised group whose mission is to restore sight in patients blinded from severe corneal disease. His expertise is the mammalian corneal, understanding how it develops and heals, and the diseases that develop when its stem cell reserves are depleted. His research program integrates basic sciences, revolutionary animal models, cutting-edge intravital imaging,...view more
Professor Nick Di Girolamo is a research-focused academic leading an internationally recognised group whose mission is to restore sight in patients blinded from severe corneal disease. His expertise is the mammalian corneal, understanding how it develops and heals, and the diseases that develop when its stem cell reserves are depleted. His research program integrates basic sciences, revolutionary animal models, cutting-edge intravital imaging, novel image analysis modalities and world-first clinical trials using adult stem cells; the results of which have demonstrated improved eye health and vision in patients. Nick has received two decades of continuous funding from the NHMRC and other national and international funding agencies and has over 120 peer reviewed published articles.
Broad Research Areas:
Stem Cells, Ophthalmology, Transplantation, Pathology, Inflammation
Qualifications:
BSc, PhD
Society Memberships & Professional Activities (current):
Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)
NHMRC GRP Panels
ORIA Research Advisory Committee
International Society for Eye Research (ISER)
ARVO Ethics and Regulation in Human Research Committee (ERHR)
Editorial Board, The Ocular Surface
Specific Research Keywords:
Corneal Stem Cell Biology, Stem Cell Therapy, Ocular Surface Disease, Ultraviolet Radiation, Dry Eye Disease
My Grants
Research Grants (2015-Current )
2015
UNSW Goldstar Award
Mapping the fate of corneal epithelial stem cells in health and disease
CIA-Di Girolamo N.
$40,000 total
2015
Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia
ORIA/Renensson Bequest Grant
Destiny of limbal epithelial stem cells in the normal cornea
CIA-Di Girolamo N.
$50,000 total
2015-2016
Kylaco PTY LTD
Spondyathropathies (spas) peptide vaccine
CIA-Marcal, CIB-Wakefiled, CIC-Di Girolamo
$200,000 total
2016-2019
NHMRC Project Grant APP1101078
Mapping the dynamics of corneal stem cells during aging and after wounding and transplantation
CIA-Di Girolamo, CIB-Watson, CIC-Wakefield
$548,903 total
2016
UNSW Goldstar Award
Methods to mark and graft corneal stem cells to treat blindness
CIA-Di Girolamo N.
$40,000 total
2016-2017
Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
Improving clinical outcomes for patients receiving corneal stem cell grafts
CIA-Di Girolamo N.
$100,000
2016-2017
Sao Paolo State Foundation for Research Support
Culturing human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells on Nanoskin scaffolds for ocular surface reconstruction
Schellini, Viveiros, Rainho, da Silva, Ximenes, Padovani, Basmaji, de Olyveira, Di Girolamo
AUD $75,000
2017-2018
Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation
Development of a vaccine to treat HLA B27 spondylarthritis (SpA)
CIA-Wakefield, CIB-Di Girolamo, CIC-Tedla
AUD $50,000
2018
Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia
ORIA/Ivy May Stephenson Grant
A novel native scaffold for corneal epithelial regeneration
CIA-Di Girolamo N.
$49,500 total
2018-2019
Australia Research Council (ARC) Strategic Research Initiative Award
SR1101002 Stem Cell Australia: Transitioning into the future
Consortium of 65 CIs from 9 Australian Stakeholder Institutions and Partner Organizations (actual funds received $124,500)
$3,000,000 total
2019-2023
NHMRC Project Grant APP1156944
Improving diagnostics and therapeutics for corneal blindness
CIA-Di Girolamo, CIB-Watson, CIC-Wakefield
$827,204 total
2019-2021
Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Accelerator Research Stem Cell Program
Stem cells for sight: building the pathway from the lab to the clinic
Watson, Di Girolamo, O’Connor, Munsie, Jamieson, Chow, Harkin
$425,000 total
2021-2022
Diabetes Australia. A Novel treatment for type 1 diabetes that regenerates sensory nerves: using the eye as a model.
CIA-Di Girolamo, CIB-Rye, CIC-Cochran, CID-Park
$60,000
2021-2024
NHMRC Project Grant GNT2004064
Preservation and generation of beta cells in T1D with novel mimetic peptides.
CIA-Rye, CIB-Cochran, CIC-Remaley, CID-Devalaraja, AI1-Di Girolamo, AI2-Thomas, AI3-Witting, AI4-Whan, AI5-Wilkins, AI6-Powell.
$1,096,055
2021-2024
US Department of Defense. Vision Research Program. Investigator Initiated Research Award.
VR200025 Sight-restoring therapy for corneal injuries sustained on the battlefield from
chemical warfare.
PI-Di Girolamo, Co-PI-Park, Co-PI-Carnell, Co-PI-Watson, Co-PI-Males
$1,006,300 total
My Qualifications
1983-1985
BSc University of Sydney (conferred 1986)
1995-1997
PhD University of New South Wales (conferred 1998)
Title: Mechanisms of Tissue Destruction in Inflammatory Eye Disease
My Awards
- ABC’s New Inventors (02-06-09) Episode winner and People’s Choice.
- Finalist and winner (23-11-09) of “Less is More Award” awarded to an inventor whose invention impacts the community or environment.
- Finalist 2010 UNSW Inventor of the Year (Biomedical)
- First Prize, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology ARVO-Scientific Image Contest winner. 2016 Migrating Multicolored Corneal Epithelia
- School of Medical Sciences, Researcher of the Year (2019)
- ARVO-Fellow 2022
My Research Activities
Corneal stem cell transplantation
One arm of our research program involves identifying, isolating and cultivating human and murine corneal epithelial stem cells. We believe this accomplishment will help us understand how the ocular surface is replenished and maintained in a healthy transparent state under normal physiological conditions and following trauma. Identifying markers for these rare but important cell is key, and to this end, we are performing cutting-edge single cell RNA sequencing experiments with appropriate analyses whilst conducting validation studies. We also hope to also identify better culture conditions and better carrier-scaffolds for these cells because the aim is to generate better quality, more effective stem cell grafts to treat patients with severe corneal diseases that result in blindness.
Developing diagnostic tools for patients with corneal disease
Another area we are interested in pursuing is to develop minimally invasive diagnostic and prognostic in-office tests for patients with corneal diseases. Here, we have focus on corneal nerves because we believe their features (e.g., density, length, thickness, branching, etc) will provide valuable ‘structural’ information about local (corneal) and systemic (whole body) health. To this end, we have developed an image segmentation algorithm for the auto-detection and computation of corneal nerve characteristics in the mouse and are poised to develop and measure the same nerve parameters using Machine Learning using clinical in vivo confocal microscopy images from patients.
Corneal Wound Healing
The third arm of our research program focuses on understanding the mechanisms of wound-healing in the cornea and to devise better therapies to treat patients with persistent corneal epithelial defects. Patients with such conditions do not require a cell or tissue replacement strategy so we are searching for corneal wound healing factors that can be dispensed to accelerate re-epithelialisation, thereby preventing infection and other complications. Notably, we have also identified uncommon and unreported non-tumourgenic transformation phenomena on the corneal surface, some of which are pathological and some that might be physiological, i.e., attempt to self-resolve. Our goal is to characterise these curiosities and potentially reverse them if they are pathological or indeed encourage them if they partake in regeneration. These investigations are carried out using pre-clinical animal models.
Dry Eye Disease
The fourth arm of our research program focuses on developing clinically relevant animal models of dry eye disease to understanding how this disease evolves, the ocular surface cell types involved in its pathogenesis and importantly developing treatment options that can be used on patients with this condition.
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
Student supervisor
Supervisor for Internships, Independent learning projects (ILP, Medicine), Honours, MSc and PhD
Areas of Research Supervision
- Corneal epithelial stem cells
- Markers for corneal stem cells
- Isolation, cultivation and grafting strategies for corneal stem cells
- Developing animal models of blinding corneal disease
- Developing diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers as clinical tests for patients with blinding corneal disease
- Dry Eye Disease; pathogenesis of DED, cells involved in DED, and treatments for DED
Currently supervising
- Lina Sprgyote (PhD; UNSW, 2021- current); Role, Primary Supervisor
- Stanley Wu (Scientia PhD; UNSW, 2020-current): Role, Associate Supervisor
My Teaching
Phase I Medicine Undergraduate teaching MFAC1501
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0020-5730
