Innovation in glaucoma surgery

Professor Augusto Azuara-Blanco is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology and his work is mainly dedicated to people with glaucoma. With an academic career at the Centre of Public Health (Health Services Research Group) his work caters to investigating the effectiveness, safety and efficiency of new technologies for  eye diseases (e.g., treatments, diagnostic tests, models of eye care).  He has expertise in primary and secondary research methodology.He is the Chief Investigator of several publicly funded trials, including EAGLE, GATE, CHAMP, GRIP and ACE. He is the co-Chief Investigator of an ongoing trial on the In-home Tracking of glaucoma (i-TRAC) study.   He is a member of the research team and co-applicant of several publicly funded multicentre trials. Overall, he has received as CI or co-applicant over £15m of research funds from MRC, NIHR-EME, NIHR-HTA, Horizon 2020, and Wellcome Trust.Augusto has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers, over 20 book chapters, and edited three books.  His work has been cited over 8000 times and his current Scopus h-index is 45. Augusto is theCchair of the Scientific Committee of the European Glaucoma Society and a member of the Executive Management Committee of Evidence Synthesis Ireland. He chairs the UK NIHR CRN Clinical Study Group for glaucoma (from 2020) and is a Member of the NIHR-HTA prioritisation committee (from 2019). He was the Lead Editor of the European Glaucoma Society Guidelines (5th edition, 2020) and is the member of the Executive Commitee of the European Glaucoma Society (2016-2020). As Special Honours, he won the American Academy of Ophthalmology achievement award (2008), King James IV Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (2020) and the American Academy of Ophthalmology Secretariat Award (2020).

Professor Jose M Martínez de la Casa, Ph.D., is graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Complutense University of Madrid. He is Head of the Glaucoma Department at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, Full Professor of Ophthalmology at the Universidad Complutense and Director of the Multidisciplinary Research group of the Universidad Complutense InnOftal. Dr. Martinez-de-la-Casa's specialty area is glaucoma, focused mainly on diagnosis and medical and surgical treatment He is the author of more than 150 publications in indexed journals and has collaborated in more than 20 ophthalmology textbooks. He has directed 28 Doctoral Theses. He is a member of the editorial board or a reviewer of 19 ophthalmology journals. He is currently Deputy Editor of the Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología and Editor in Chief of the Revista Española de Glaucoma e Hipertensión Ocular.

Professor Doctor Ingeborg Stalmans heads the Laboratory of Ophthalmology at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) as well as the Glaucoma unit of the University Hospitals in Leuven (UZ Leuven). The current focus of her basic and clinical research work is medical glaucoma therapy, glaucoma surgery and retinal imaging as a biomarker for systemic diseases. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, the President of the Belgian Glaucoma Society, the Vice-President of the European Glaucoma Society and serves in the Board of Governors of the World Glaucoma Society.

Mr Dan Lindfield is a Consultant Ophthalmologist and Glaucoma Director at Royal Surrey, Guildford. He also works for Health Education England as Director of the Ophthalmology Training Programme KSS. He trained in the south of England and London and undertook glaucoma fellowship training at St Thomas’ Hospital and Kings College Hospitals, London. He has won 16 national and international prizes, published 39 papers and has been an invited speaker across the UK and Europe. His main interests are complex cataract surgery, all aspects of glaucoma surgery and educational research. He won a prestigious HSJ National Patient Safety award in 2021 in addition to being named amongst the Top 100 Ophthalmologists in the world by The Ophthalmologist magazine 2018. In 2017 he was voted one of 50 “rising stars in world ophthalmology”, recognising his efforts and achievements in surgery, training, research and patient care.