Evolving treatments in retinal surgery

Ms Evgenia Anikina was educated in Cambridge, gaining a first class degree and consequently completed her specialist ophthalmology training in London. She undertook two surgical retinal fellowships and a medical retina fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital prior to being appointed as a Consultant Vitreoretinal Surgeon at the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust.

She has been the recipient of a number of prizes and awards and has held several additional roles, including being a member of a medical ethics committee, serving as a medical representative for Great Britain for an international sporting federation and having a position on the Council of the Ophthalmology Section of the RSM.

She is passionate about education and has been involved extensively with teaching and training. This experience has included a College Supervisor role at the University of Cambridge, serving on the clinical skills faculty for the RCOphth and being a College examiner.

Louisa Wickham has been a full-time consultant at Moorfields since 2009 and was appointed Chief Surgeon in 2019. Louisa has a research degree in the surgical management of retinal detachment and post-operative scarring and trained in both Vitreoretinal Surgery and Medical Retinal disorders. She has particular specialist interest in the surgical management of diabetic eye disease including early surgical intervention. Louisa has also developed an interest in secondary lens insertion with a focus on tailoring lens choices to individual needs and ocular co-morbidity. As a surgical innovator, Louisa is leading on the safe introduction of surgical innovation in the Trust. Her clinical team has previously been awarded a Patient Choice award at Moorfields, in addition her managed practice won “Best Ophthalmology Consultant 2016- London” in Corporate Vision Magazine.

Mr Chien Wong is a consultant ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal (VR) surgeon in London, at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), Royal Free and Moorfields Eye Hospital. He has a special interest in complex paediatric VR surgery and retinovascular diseases, in addition to his adult VR work.

Following ophthalmology residency at Moorfields Eye Hospital, he undertook VR and medical retina clinical fellowships also at Moorfields, and a further 3 years of paediatric VR and retinovascular clinical and research fellowships at Beaumont Hospital, Michigan, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, USA. He has been awarded over 15 prizes over his career and was recently inducted into the Retina Society.

In 2014, he transformed the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) retinal detachment in the UK, by introducing a novel endoscopic vitrectomy approach. Subsequently, GOSH became the de facto UK national surgical centre for ROP-RD, in collaboration with Oxford University, with Mr Wong as the Head.

In 2017, he was named in the annual Power List, a global top 50 list of rising stars in ophthalmology.

His clinical and research interests include vitreoretinal surgery in adults and children, paediatric retinovascular diseases, genomic medicine and surgical approaches for gene therapy, surgical innovation and vitreoretinal surgical devices development. Dr Wong was the UK Chief Investigator and Moorfields Eye Hospital Principal Investigator for the RAINBOW randomised controlled trial. He is a co-investigator on several phase I/II gene therapy clinical trials. He has over 40 publications, has written numerous book chapters, and has run over 20 surgical courses including being the course director at the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting of “Paediatric Vitreoretinal Disorders: Current & Future Management”.

He has worked closely with the Armenian EyeCare Project (AECP) since 2014, a not-for-profit California-based NGO supporting and developing eye care in Armenia since 1992. With over 10 trips to the country, he has trained the VR surgical team from the inception of the National Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness in Yerevan, Armenia, co-funded by AECP and the United States Agency for International Development.

James Bainbridge is a surgeon-scientist developing innovative gene and cell therapies for blinding eye disease. He has led the translation of gene therapies from proof of concept in experimental models to clinical trials for the benefit of people affected by inherited blindness. In 2007 he performed the pioneering world's first gene therapy for inherited eye disease, improving sight in adults and children (Bainbridge et al NEJM 2008). In 2018 he was a recipient of the €1m Champalimaud Vision Award, the World’s largest prize in vision research.