Dr Stephanie Bezzina Wettinger from the Dept of Applied Biomedical Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, has received a Research Excellence Award from the University of Malta to use high throughput sequencing to identify genes underlying Pseudoexfoliative Glaucoma, a common cause of visual impairment and blindness. Together with her collaborators Dr Rosienne Farrugia, Ms Francesca Borg Carbott, Dr Jean Paul Ebejer, Dr Karen Cassar and Mr Francis Carbonaro they will apply these findings to develop tests to identify people at risk and new drug targets, and to determine associations with myocardial infarction since literature suggests an association of glaucoma with cardiovascular disease.