Oriel is the joint initiative between Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Charity, that will bring scientists and clinicians from the hospital’s City Road site under one roof for the first time in 2027.
Construction of the centre reached the highest point in December and was marked with a topping out ceremony, hosted by the Oriel and construction partner Bouygues UK.
Dedicated education space located throughout the building will offer collaborative environments for knowledge sharing and an enhanced space for students to learn from world leaders in ophthalmology and vision science. The centre has been co-designed by staff and patients to ensure it offers an inclusive environment where innovative research will flourish, staff will thrive and patients will experience an enhanced seamless patient experience.
An innovation hub will be located in the heart of the new centre to encourage collaboration and is intended to be a catalyst for interaction, dissemination of knowledge and cross fertilisation of ideas and concepts between clinicians and researchers at the forefront of translational ophthalmic science, especially in the digital domain. The innovative building design has created standardised scientific wet lab ‘neighbourhoods’, where each research group will have access to specialist tissue cell laboratories, genomic research and state-of-the-art cellular and molecular imaging.
