UND research team approved for Pediatric Eye Disease Group clinical trials

With the permission and support from College of Arts & Sciences dean Brad Rundquist, the Department of Psychology has enrolled to conduct clinical trials for the Pediatric Eye Disease Group (PEDIG) that is funded through the National Institutes of Health and National Eye Institute.

UND is the first site in North Dakota to receive PEDIG approval to conduct clinical trials of various treatment procedures for children with eye conditions such as strabismus, amblyopia (“lazy eye”), esotropia, exotropia and others. The research team is in the process of recruiting families to participate in randomized trials of dichoptic treatment for amblyopia. The trials, studying treatments for children between age 4 and 12, range from 18 to 26 weeks and involve virtual reality headsets.

David Biberdorf, a UND researcher and former practicing optometrist, has been approved by the PEDIG group to be the principal investigator for all of the studies conducted at the UND site, based at the Department of Psychology. Dmitri Poltavski, a vision researcher and a professor of psychology at UND, is the overall site coordinator responsible for personnel protocol trainings, equipment set up, grant management and liaising between the College, University and the Jaeb Center for Health Research, located in Tampa, Fla. Carolina Praus Poltavski, an optometric vision therapist, has been approved and certified to be the clinical site coordinator in charge of study-specific examination and treatment procedures and data entry.

The PEDIG was formed by the NEI in 1997 as a collaborative network dedicated to facilitating multicenter clinical research in strabismus, amblyopia and other eye disorders in children. The PEDIG receives millions of dollars in NIH funding annually and typically has several ongoing research projects. The Jaeb Center for Health Research is the coordinating center which organizes PEDIG studies.

For more information, please contact the UND PEDIG group by leaving a voicemail at 701.777.6843 or sending an email to UND.eyeclinictrials@UND.edu.