National diabetic eye screening conference 2021: Fighting the good fight

Professor Harding is a clinical research scientist leading a group of clinical and non-clinical researchers studying retinal diseases including diabetic retinopathy (DR), age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and malarial retinopathy. Their research programmes related to these areas are in disease mechanisms, ocular structure and function, image analysis, biostatistics, clinical trials and health services research. He is clinically qualified and clinically active. As a senior academic in the Department of Eye and Vision Science (EVS), Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences Professor Harding contributes to research groups in molecular/cellular mechanisms, bioengineering/image analysis and clinical and behavioural research, principally focussed on common chronic diseases.

As Head of Department between 2010 and 2020 he helped to grow EVS to over 40 staff including 16 academics, and to develop a strong partnership with the NHS clinical unit, St. Paul’s Eye Unit with active senior honorary clinical research staff. Having recently completed a term as Clinical Director, Research and Innovation at Liverpool University Hospitals Trust (2018-2020), he continues to contribute to the city’s strengthening commitment to translational and health services research. He has CI experience at programme grant level (Wellcome Trust, NIHR) and has extensive experience as PI/Co-I in a range of international, multicentre and translational studies. Professor Harding has written/contributed to 190 peer reviewed full publication and currently supervise 5 PhD students.

Mr Aldington is a professionally qualified manager and scientific photographer, with over 39 years of experience in medical research and the clinical healthcare environment; particularly related to eye complications associated with diabetes. Since 1982 Mr Aldington has been centrally involved in the detection and assessment of diabetic retinopathy for clinical and research purposes, research design and management, ophthalmic retinal imaging and the qualification and professional development of healthcare staff. He has many years of experience of developing and delivering core educational and CPD content related to retinopathy and imaging for a wide range of professional groups. Co-founder and ultimately Director and Principal Investigator for the internationally acclaimed Retinopathy Grading Centre at Imperial College London at Hammersmith Hospital.

Mr Aldington successfully attracted high-profile international studies for which we provided detection, assessment, and classification of diabetic retinopathy. He has been fortunate to have collaborated with most of the world leaders in this field. Leaving Imperial in 2008, Mr Aldington moved to Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust to help develop and deliver core aspects of the new NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Programme (NDESP) including 2008-12 as National Education Lead for NDESP. Mr Aldington manages a small team providing professional qualifications in and outside the UK. He is Senior Tutor for the Cert. HE in Diabetic Retinopathy Screening and a Module Tutor for the Foundation Degree in OCT, both awarded by the University of Gloucestershire.

He also continues to manage the research portfolio of our Gloucestershire Retinal Research Group, with over 15 clinical research trials and academic research projects and is the Principal Investigator for some of their retinopathy assessment (grading) studies. Mr Aldington has WoS and Scholar Google h-index scores of 29 and 33 respectively (Researcher ID: G-7828-2012, ORCID-ID: 0000-0003-1808-3580i10-index of 53) RG Score of 37 with over 28,000 citations from over 100 publications (including group publications) with over 1000 citations/year since 2003.

Tunde Peto is Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology at Queen’s University Belfast where she is responsible for teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Her remit also covers the development of International image analysis, training and educating in Countries throughout the world. In addition to her academic work, Professor Peto is also responsible for the Belfast Ophthalmic Reading Centre and a wide research portfolio.

Her main interest has always been common blinding retinal diseases, with special emphasis on characterisation of diabetic retinopathy and its imaging modalities. Professor Peto has been involved in UK National Diabetic Retinopathy Screening programmes since 2002, she was clinical lead for London programmes and is currently the clinical lead for the Northern Irish Programme and the clinical lead for diabetic eye at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

Professor Tunde Peto trained in Hungary and Australia and spent 15 years at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London before taking up her current position in Belfast.

Professor Anne Mackie is the Director of Screening for Public Health England. Anne has worked in Public Health for nearly 20 years across London and the South East. Previous roles have included medical director of the National Specialist Commissioning Advisory Group, Director of Public Health in Kent and Director of Public Health in South West London. Latterly Anne was Director of Public Health for London SHA before taking on her current post in August 2007. She lives in London with her partner and their daughter.

Patrick has been the National Programme Manager for the Diabetic Eye Screening Programme for nearly 5 years, and has been instrumental in the development and modernisation of the screening programme over this time. During the coronavirus response Patrick has led on the development of the restoration guidance and the risk stratified approach to screen those most at risk of sight-loss. Prior to being programme manager he was the national education manager for diabetic eye screening and developed the Health Screener Diploma National qualification. Before working in screening he was a Principal  Clinical Vascular Scientist in a Greater Manchester Hospital and had a keen interest in improving referral pathways for people with ocular symptoms of stroke. He is currently undertaking his Masters in Public Health which he hopes to complete this year….fingers crossed! In his spare time; he enjoys socialising with friends and family, keeping fit, wine tasting and country music.