Scientific Advisory Board Members
W. Daniel Stamer, PhD
- Co Vice-Chair of Basic Science Research at Duke University
- Joseph A.C. Wadsworth Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology at Duke University
Dr. Stamer’s research focuses on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate conventional outflow in health, and the dysregulation that occurs in disease leading to ocular hypertension.
Notable recent accomplishments include the Rudin Prize for Glaucoma in 2012, the Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award in 2013, and election as Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology president in 2018.
He currently holds prominent editorial positions in three premier ophthalmology journals: as editor-in-chief for the Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, as an editorial board member for Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, and the executive editor for Experimental Eye Research. In addition to 39 collaborative projects with 11 pharmaceutical companies, the National Institutes of Health has continuously funded Dr. Stamer’s research for the past 18 years.
His work is documented in 140 original articles, 27 review articles/book chapters, and 19 editorials.
Jonathan Crowston, MD, PhD
- Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Sydney
- Director of the Save Sight Institute
- Consultant at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Dr. Crowston is an ophthalmologist and clinician-scientist conducting lab and clinic-based research toward understanding how aging increases an individual’s risk for glaucoma and related neurodegenerative diseases of the optic nerve. He has a particular interest in the role of metabolic dysfunction and aging on the optic nerve’s resilience to injury.
Dr. Crowston has been exploring mechanisms of neuro-recovery in injured neurons and how this can be modified by lifestyle interventions including diet and exercise. He is leading a multicentre clinical trial examining the effect of nicotinamide on glaucoma progression. He co-founded Oculo, which developed a shared care platform for eye care providers that was sold to Revenio in 2021.
Dr. Crowston has received a number of awards for his research and teaching and published widely in the area of glaucoma and neuroprotection.
C. Ross Ethier, PhD
- Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr. and Mary Duckworth Gellerstedt Chair in Bioengineering
- Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology
- Emory University Founding Chair of the Bioengineering Society (UK)
Dr. Ethier researches the biomechanics of cells and whole organs, with specific emphasis on ocular biomechanics. His primary focus is on developing treatments for glaucoma and myopia.
His work has attracted more than 18,000 citations and has an h-index of 79, making him currently the world’s most cited researcher in the field of ocular biomechanics. Dr. Ethier’s research has spawned three books, seven book chapters, more than 230 refereed journal articles, over 500 conference and seminar presentations, four patents, and four invention disclosures. He has received both the Steacie and Humboldt Fellowships, and the Lissner Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Dr. Ethier sits on the editorial boards of four journals, is the co-editor-in-chief of the ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, serves as chair of the Glaucoma Research Society’s Membership Committee, and is on the Board of Directors of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, where he is also chair of the finance committee. He is a member of the BrightFocus Foundation’s Glaucoma Research Scientific Review Committee, and the Finance Committee of the Biomedical Engineering Society.
He chairs the external Advisory Boards for the Departments of Bioengineering at Imperial College London and the University of British Columbia. Dr. Ethier is the Founding Chair of the Bioengineering Society (UK) and has also received the title of fellow from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; International Academy for Medical and Biological Engineering; Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; The City and Guilds Institute; and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Sir Peng T. Khaw, MD, PhD
- Professor and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at the University College of London Moorfields Eye Hospital
- Co-Director of the UK’s National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre in Ophthalmology
- President of the UK Paediatric Glaucoma Society
- NIHR Senior Investigator
Dr. Khaw has a special interest in the surgical and medical treatment of refractory glaucoma, particularly pediatric glaucoma.
His group undertakes research into new surgical techniques and new treatments to prevent scarring and encourage regeneration of tissues after ocular surgery and disease. They have developed inexpensive single applications of intra-operative antimetabolites that have been tested in clinical trials across the world, and have also developed new surgical techniques, including the Moorfields Safer Surgery System, dramatically reducing bleb-related and other complications, now used worldwide. They are also developing drug delivery systems, stem cell therapies, and new single-application anti-scarring treatments.
Dr. Khaw has delivered over 35 national and international named lectures, won over 12 prizes and awards, including the first international Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Pfizer Translational Medicine Prize. He was the first UK President of ARVO (2012-2013). He has raised grants of over £120 million, including funding for the world’s largest Children’s Eye Hospital and translational research clinical centre, and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013 for services to ophthalmology, one of two ophthalmologists in the last century to be recognized.
He passionately believes that scientific research will enable us to achieve new and better treatments to change lives for the better.
Ingeborg Stalmans, MD, PhD
- Director of the Laboratory of Ophthalmology of the Catholic University of Leuven
- Director of the Glaucoma Unit at the University Hospitals Leuven (UZ Leuven) in Belgium
Dr. Stalmans’ research at KUL focuses on the eye as a window to the body and the use of retinal imaging to detect and monitor not only eye diseases but also cardiovascular diseases and dementia. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool to make optimal use of the multitude of imaging and other metadata.
Dr. Stalmans is part of the Mission Lucidity consortium and the Alzheimer’s Disease Detection Using Multimodal Imaging of the Retina (ADMIRE) consortium, which is working to develop a multimodal retinal imaging tool for the early detection and clinical follow-up of patients with Alzheimer’s.
She is the co-promoter of a PhD project to use AI for the detection of glaucoma and its progression; this has resulted in a convolutional neural network-based algorithm, which can reliably detect glaucoma based on photos of the optic disc. Further work is ongoing to explore the potential for the prediction of functional damage based on structural damage as well as the prediction of disease progression. The Leuven Eye Study, a prospective cohort involving about 350 glaucoma patients and healthy controls, was established to investigate the vascular aspects of glaucoma. These data also serve as a source for AI work on the prediction of disease progression in glaucoma.
Dr. Stalmans is also developing retinal imaging as a biomarker for cardiovascular diseases. The ENRICH (ENdothelial Retinal Function as Indicator for Vascular Cognitive Health) consortium is a multi-disciplinary team bringing together clinicians, engineers, and basic scientists to explore the potential of retinal vascular parameters to detect and monitor microvascular dysfunction in relation to cognitive health and to explore the fundamentals of microvascular dysfunction by studying senescence, vascular permeability, and pericyte function. AI will be used to exploit the data it generates.
Donald J. Zack, MD, PhD
- Guerrieri Professor of Genetic Engineering and Molecular Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University
- Co-director of the Center for Stem Cells and Ocular Regenerative Medicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute
Dr. Zack studies the control of gene expression in retinal ganglion cells, the cells whose death in glaucoma leads to visual loss and potentially blindness. He also studies the mechanisms by which ganglion cells die in glaucoma and is developing novel methods to slow down, and hopefully prevent, ganglion cell death in glaucoma.
Dr. Zack and his colleagues are beginning studies to promote the differentiation of stem cells into retinal ganglion cells, in the hope that someday that might offer the possibility of restoring vision to glaucoma patients who have already lost significant vision due to ganglion cell death.
Dr. Zack has published over 160 peer-reviewed journal articles and has won a number of awards, including the Alcon Research Award.