Debate@Go8 Mini: Professor David Mackey AO on the Consequences of the MRFF Funding Cap
Amazingly, exposure to sunlight can reduce the chances of kids developing myopia. But of course it’s no nearly as straight-forward as that, which is why renowned international researcher into the genetics of eye disease, Professor David Mackey AO from The University of Western Australia, put in an application for a Medical Research Future Fund grant for research that would help predict which children in Australia were at higher risk of developing the condition – and provide simple but effective mechanisms to avoid it and the serious complications that can result from it, like blindness. But his MRFF grant application was rejected. In this Debate@Go8 Mini podcast episode, Professor Mackey tells Go8 CE Vicki Thomson that the loss of this research will cost Australia much more than the cost of the MRFF grant, due to the expense of interventions that will be needed to deal with the effects of myopia on kids’ eye health as they grow up. Recorded November 2025.
