NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre activity 2024-2025
The last academic year has marked an exciting period of growth and collaboration throughout NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), with high-profile visits and major research milestones.
The five themes have thrived and continue to produce high quality, ground breaking results.
In November 2024, we were honoured to welcome Marsha de Cordova MP to our BRC, where she explored our commitment to achieving “equity through innovation” in eye health. Known nationally for her advocacy on disability access and eye care, Marsha met with leading clinicians and researchers during a tour of the NIHR Moorfields Clinical Research Facility and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. Her visit highlighted the importance of translating leading-edge research into meaningful change for those living with visual impairment, and cemented a partnership with Marsha for future national collaborations and strategies.
Additional to research-focussed events, the Cross Innovation Hub convened clinicians, academics, and industry leaders to explore how clinical and research collaborations can be translated into viable business ventures. Speakers from UCL, Moorfields, and the NHS offered practical guidance on intellectual property, funding pathways, commercial readiness, and innovation culture. The session concluded with vibrant networking and multiple follow-up collaborations reinforcing the Hub’s mission to foster interdisciplinary partnerships and entrepreneurial thinking in healthcare. This momentum has since continued through well-attended business webinars and ongoing support for new innovators.
The Clinical Academic Trainee Forum delivered an excellent programme of talks and discussions and was well attended, providing an invaluable platform for early-career clinicians to learn from leading researchers and connect across specialties.
Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation (PPIEP) is central to our ethos of maximising patient benefit. We continue to embed patient, public, carer, and family voices across BRC research, communications, governance, and strategy. Our PPIEP strategy, developed with 11 BRC PPIE strategic advisors, is structured on the UK Standards for Public Involvement.
This year also saw a significant expansion of activities designed to strengthen research culture and public engagement across the BRC. The Research Roadshow brought researchers directly into Moorfields satellite sites, where they met patients in waiting rooms to discuss ongoing studies, answer questions, and spark interest in research participation. Our Researcher Engagers Group also met regularly throughout the year, offering a creative and collaborative space for sharing ideas on how best to bring research into public and patient settings. These sessions, featuring insightful guest speakers, have strengthened our culture of openness, partnership, and community-driven innovation.
An excellent example of patient engagement was seen at the Fuchs Patients Day hosted by Professor Alice Davidson’s Inherited Corneal Disease Laboratory. Bringing together individuals affected by Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD), the event offered a rare and impactful exchange between patients, scientists, and clinicians. Attendees heard about emerging gene-directed therapies, the lab’s ambitions for earlier genetic testing in primary care, and new strategies to develop the first preventative treatment for FECD. Researchers shared how patient partnership directly enriches scientific understanding, with one participant describing renewed “hope for less intrusive treatment” as a key takeaway. The day showcased the power of collaborative research environments that connect lived experience with laboratory progress.
Awards and accolades have also accelerated across the BRC, including a prestigious NIHR Doctoral Fellowship awarded to UCL’s Dr Shafi Balal for pioneering AI-powered keratoconus research. His project, KERAFound, aims to develop a foundation model capable of diagnosing corneal diseases earlier and more accurately, using large-scale datasets from INSIGHT and clinical partners at Moorfields. Meanwhile, BRC-supported researchers achieved a major milestone with Eye2Gene, an AI tool published in Nature Machine Intelligence that can identify the genetic causes of inherited retinal disease with accuracy surpassing human experts. Both initiatives reflect the BRC’s leadership in harnessing data science and AI to reduce diagnostic delays, improve patient outcomes, and expand access to personalised treatments.
Efforts were further recognised through the Royal Society’s Gabor Medal, awarded to Professor Pearse Keane for his groundbreaking work in applying AI to retinal imaging and advancing the emerging field of oculomics.
Commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion has been a defining theme across our activities, from sponsoring inspirational colleagues at the ARVO WEAVR Luncheon, to securing NIHR funding that supports underrepresented clinicians in pursuing research careers, to launching a new video series designed to break down barriers to participation in health studies. This community-driven initiative, led by Professor Roxanne Crosby-Nwaobi, reached tens of thousands of people through roadshows, multilingual broadcasts, and co-produced messaging that builds trust and awareness.
Together, these achievements illustrate a shared commitment across our BRC community to driving innovation that is inclusive, impactful, and firmly grounded in improving health for all.