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Sandra Carolina Durán Cristiano, graduated from the Optometry programme at Universidad de la Salle, Colombia. She also has a masters degree in Basic Biomedical Sciences from Universidad del Boque, being the first latin American optometrist to graduate from this programme.
She also has experience in Research, writing scientific articles and in Immunology and Biomedical Science. She has a wide experience in basic research at the Virology´s laboratory of the Vice-rectory for Research, at Universidad del Bosque. Her knowledge in molecular biology, immunology, genetics, neurosciences and bioinformatics has contributed to the professional practice in innovation in Optometry Research.
She is now a Professor at the Universidad de la Salle, at Faculty of Health Sciences, optometry programme and master’s degree in Vision sciences. She is also the Coordinator of the Ocular Pharmacology Specialization degree and teacher of some courses in ocular immunology and eye special exams.
Sandra Duran, MSc. has participated in various academic and scientific events, obtaining first and second place through works developed with themes of role of vision in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative pathologies, as well as first place in the work Visual and Ocular Function as possible biomarkers of neurotoxicity due to pesticides, in the National and International Congress of Technology Applied to Health Sciences in Mexico. She has also participated in interdisciplinary events in the International Congress of Neurosciences, Biomedical Sciences and Clinical Virology.
Her work has been published in indexed journals in Colombia and in a high impact journal, one of the recent publications being “The eye and its implication in the COVID-19 pandemic”, one of the most read in Ophthalmology and Optometry in the Journal Of Optometry (ElSevier) .
She is a member of CLIO (Latin American Council for Research in Optometry), COLNE (Colombian College of Neurosciences) and VOSH-Colombia, participating in days of visual health brigades in different regions in collaboration with the Army and National Police of Colombia.
“I love visual health research and the relationship between bioscience and vision. At present, I am developing research projects with bioinformatics and molecular and cellular biology applied to visual health, especially in dry eye, neuro-optometry, and ocular toxicology topics. I am also working on standardizing tests in molecular biology for the search for biomarkers from the tear and analysis in computational biology and bioinformatics.
CiThe Innovation in Optometry will be the future through the Biosciences.
– Sandra Carolina Durán Cristiano
