Algis retired from the University on Dec 2020 after 32 years of teaching and research. At present he retains the honorary appointment of Professorial Fellow in the Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science faculty, at the University of Melbourne and works part-time as a Seniore Research consultant for the Centre od Eye Research Australia.
His research interests lay in developing a better understanding of eye disease such as; diabetes, glaucoma and age-related maculopathy as well as neurological disorders that can affect vision, such as; migraine and stoke. He was a contributor to several seminal publications on the effects that migraine can have on vision and more recently has published on the role that self-monitoring of vision at home has in predicting the onset of a migraine event – their work shows that it can.
He has had a major interest in the role that new technology and home-monitoring can have in vision and disease detection and monitoring for some time, pertaining to; AMD, Diabetes, Glaucoma, Neurological disorders and Migraine. His group have been recognised for research excellence by nominations by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) program committee as reporting ‘Emerging trends and Hot topics’ in 2016 and 2018, a distinction awarded to 2% of ARVO submissions in any year. These representing the newest and most innovative research being conducted across all the specialties of ARVO and is a distinction awarded to just over 2% of Annual Meeting submissions.
Algis was recognised by the Optometry Association for his outstanding academic contribution to the visual welfare of the Australian community in 2004. Later, in 2010, he received Fellowship to the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, (FARVO) for his dedication and service to the international vision and ophthalmic communities.
He has mentored and inspired 61 post-graduate students and has been the principal investigator in 9 clinical trials, His team have published over 434 conference abstracts or publications (Google scholar, May 2022) including: 15 invited reviews, 24 book chapters and 16 reports to government or industry including National Health & Medical Research Council (Aust) ‘’Glaucoma guidelines” and the World Glaucoma Associations Consensus Series 6: “Ocular blood flow in Glaucoma”.
Algis has been the principal consultant to Medmont International P/L in the development of their vision test suite and automated perimeter since 1990, ending his relationship with this company in 2002. In 2015, Algis formed a company (Glance Optical P/L) in partnership with Dr George Kong (MBBS PhD FRANZCO) a glaucoma specialist and IT expert, for the purpose of developing and marketing a novel and unique vision test on an iPad tablet called the Melbourne Rapid Fields (MRF). With the advent of COVID their company translated the iPad software to a browser platform so that it can be used by patients on any computer. With these developments his aspiration for telemedicine in ophthalmology, endocrinology and neurology have finally been realised.