The "Anterior Segment and Ocular Annexes" Research Unit, coordinated by Dr. Domenico Schiano Lomoriello, is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach to clinical research in Ophthalmology, involving collaboration between ophthalmologists, biologists, geneticists and biomedical engineers. The research activity of this group has the most advanced diagnostic instrumentation for the Anterior Segment of the eye.

Such instrumentation includes: corneal aberrometry, corneal topography, corneal tomography, pupillometry, corneal pachymetry, anterior segment OCT, and confocal corneal microscopy. The group's research areas are corneal biomechanics, biocompatibility of intraocular lenses and modern optics.

The repeatability and reproducibility of biometrics are also evaluated with new hi-tech technologies and different formulas to identify new approaches in the calculations of intraocular lenses implanted during cataract surgery, both in normal patients and in complex patients, such as post-refractive surgery or post-corneal transplantation. The research activity also involves the implementation of new methods for the early and non-invasive diagnosis of corneal alterations in patients suffering from systemic pathologies, such as the use of confocal microscopy for the early diagnosis of peripheral neuropathies.

Also, in the field of diagnostics, the research group makes use of collaborations with other research centers for the development of new etiological diagnosis methods in corneal infections based on metagenomics. Finally, the research group collaborated with biologists to study the proteomics of the corneas of patients undergoing keratoplasty.