5th European Aniridia Conference

After training at the Oxford and Moorfields Eye Hospitals Tony undertook a two-year fellowship in Paediatric Ophthalmology at the Hospitals for Sick Children in London and Toronto.
In 1986 he moved to Addenbrooke's Hospital as a consultant with a special interest in paediatric ophthalmology and inherited eye disease.
In 2001 he moved back to London when he was appointed to the Duke Elder Chair of Ophthalmology at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and Moorfields Eye Hospital
London. He retired from UCL in December 2014 when he moved to a new position as Professor of Ophthalmology at UCSF Medical School in San Francisco. His main research interests are in inherited eye disease.

Graduated with a PhD from the University of Strathclyde and took up a postdoctoral Fellowship at Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA, USA. She then returned to the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL for 6 years before taking up a Faculty position at Imperial College London in 1997. In 2009 she was recruited to the Department of Ophthalmology at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her laboratory is focussed on understanding the genetic causes of childhood ocular diseases including aniridia, ocular coloboma and inherited retinal degenerations and designing targeted therapeutics strategies.

Prof. Lagali conducts research on corneal disease, regenerative medicine and imaging in ophthalmology. He has conducted aniridia research in Sweden, Norway, Poland and Germany, and is Chair of the European Union’s COST Action ANIRIDIA-NET (2019-2023). He is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Aniridia Europe.

My focus is distributed in clinical practice, teaching and research, currently pediatric anterior segment, ocular surface, strabismus and oculo-plastic surgery.

Specialises in genetic eye disease including aniridia, anterior segment dysgenesis, congenital cataracts, glaucoma, microphthalmia, anophthalmia and ocular coloboma and inherited retinal diseases.

He has clinical and basic science research interest in aniridia related keratopathy (ARK), the corneal changes associated with aniridia and PAX6 mutations. His interest is in the developed of novel stem cell-based therapies for the corneal disease.

Director of Cells for Sight Stem Cell Therapy Research Unit: a MHRA licensed state-of-the-art GMP facility available to academic and commercial researchers for the manufacture of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products.
Member of Aniridia Europe Committee.

I’m interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate embryonic development of the forebrain and how disorders can arise when these developmental mechanisms are perturbed. We use a wide range of techniques in our work including cerebral organoids and the generation and analysis of genetically modified mice.

Rutter trained in Cell Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bristol before Fellowships in Geneva, Switzerland, and Bristol. He became Professor of Biochemistry in Bristol in 2002 and moved to Imperial College London in 2006. A Welcome Trust Investigator and Director of the Imperial Network of Excellence in Diabetes, his research focus is on the genetic and environmental drivers of type 2 diabetes. A former Royal Society Merit Award holder, he was awarded the Minkowski Prize of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in 2004 and the Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture of Diabetes UK in 2014. Rutter is also Visiting Professor at Nan Yang Technological College, Singapore and the University of California, San Francisco.

I lead regional paediatric cataract, nystagmus and oculo-genetic services and am a member of the RCOphth genomics working group and paediatric and academic sub-committees. I lead a research group with an interest in paediatric ophthalmic disorders including aniridia / nystagmus / albinism / retinal disorders and is a scientific advisor for 3 charities and ambassador for the David Katz foundation.

I have specialist interest in corneal and external eye disease. I have experience in the management of the corneal and cataract complications associated with aniridia.

Kelly Trout co-founded the International WAGR Syndrome Association (IWSA) in 2000. She assists families, clinicians, and researchers, manages the WAGR Syndrome Patient Registry, and has written numerous articles on this disorder for professional, lay, and web publications.

Specialises in neuro-ophthalmology, paediatrics and strabismus and has an international research reputation in the area of infantile nystagmus, pediatric retinal development and optical coherence tomography (OCT). She has recently been awarded an MRC Clinician Scientist fellowship to investigate the role of Oral Levodopa in improving Visual development in Infants and young children with Albinism (the OLIVIA study).

Since 2016 has been working in the lab of Prof David FitzPatrick (MRC Human Genetics Unit, IGMM) undertaking a Wellcome Trust-funded PhD investigating the genetic and development basis of PAX6-negative aniridia. Has aspecial interest in paediatric ophthalmology
She has family members with aniridia
Wellcome Trust ECAT Clinical Lecturer

Parent of child with aniridia

Keith inherited aniridia, is the son visually impaired parents, and leads an independent life, including his full-time role as Head of Digital and Communications at Social Care Institute for Excellence‎

I am a mum of two, one of who also has aniridia. We live in Newcastle with my husband. I work part time as a call taker for North East Ambulance Service, in my spare time I like to run with the assistance of a guide runner.

A 26-year-old, who is registered blind and has only approximately 10% vision remaining. This is a result of him having aniridia, nystagmus, cataracts and glaucoma.