IoO appoints new Research Theme Leads and Deputy Theme Leads

16 April 2021

Congratulations to our newly appointed Theme Leads and Deputy Theme Leads who will be taking our research programme forward.

We are pleased to announce that we have now appointed a new Theme Lead and Deputy Theme Lead (DTL) for each of the following four research themes at the IoO:

Development, Aging and Disease
Rescue, Repair and Regeneration
Visual Neuroscience and Function
Population and Data Science

With the exception of Professor Andrew Stockman, who will continue to be Lead of the Visual Neuroscience and Function theme, all positions will start from 1 September 2021 for three years (which can be renewed for a further three years). These are unremunerated academic leadership roles recognised in the UCL senior promotions and professorial re-banding processes.

The new Theme Leads are:

Professor Pete Coffey, newly appointed Lead of the Rescue, Repair and Regeneration theme
Professor Paul Foster, newly appointed Lead of the Population and Data Science theme
Professor Clare Futter, newly appointed Lead of the Development, Aging and Disease theme

The new Deputy Theme Leads (DTL):

Dr Adam Dubis, newly appointed Deputy Lead of the Population and Data Science theme
Dr Ryan MacDonald, newly appointed Deputy Lead of the Development, Aging and Disease theme
Dr Amanda Carr, newly appointed Deputy Lead of the Rescue, Repair and Regeneration theme
Dr Tessa Dekker, newly appointed Deputy Lead of the Visual Neuroscience and Function theme

Professor Pete Coffey

As well as Theme Lead of Development, Ageing and Disease at UCL IoO Profe Pete Coffey, DPhil, is the Co-Executive Director of Translation at UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering. He is the principal author and co-author of two landmark papers demonstrating the use of human cells to halt visual deterioration in models of age-related macular degeneration. His achievements include the launch of the London Project to Cure Blindness, which aims to develop a stem cell therapy for the majority of all types of age-related macular degeneration, seminal work on retinal transplantation (as described by Debrossy & Dunnett, Nature Neuroscience 2001). Prof Coffey has received many honors and awards, including the prestigious Estelle Doheny Living Tribute Award in 2009, Retinitis Pigmentosa International's Vision Award in 2009, the CIRM Leadership Award in 2010, and the New York Stem Cell Foundation Roberston Prize in 2011. In 2018, the results of two patients were presented in which an engineered biopolymer with stem cell derived retinal pigment epithelium cells were implanted into the eye. Not only did this demonstrate that regenerative medicine is feasible but resulted in the sustained recovery of reading in blind patients with sudden severe vision loss from Macular Degeneration – a breakthrough validating the stem cell treatment paradigm.

“Regeneration is definitely what we need after this current pandemic. Let’s work together to restore our research outputs.
Prof Pete Coffey

Professor Paul J Foster

Prof Foster, BMedSci(Hons) BM BS PhD FRCS FRCOphth FRCS(Eng), is Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Glaucoma Studies at UCL IoO, and honorary consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital. A graduate of Nottingham University Medical School, his residency training was at Oxford Eye Hospital, and Moorfields Eye Hospital. He has a PhD in epidemiology of glaucoma. His current research interests include the epidemiology, environmental determinants, surgical management and prevention of glaucoma. Major research projects include:

PI: EPIC-Norfolk Eye Study: a cohort of 8,623 people aimed at investigating novel environmental and genetic factors in eye disease
Consortium Lead - UK Biobank Eye and Vision Consortium (eye and vision data on 130,000 people)
ZAP study: (China) A randomised, controlled trial of prophylactic laser iridotomy in 890 high risk individuals in China

Prof Foster has published 260 peer-reviewed papers, 16 book chapters and 7 journal editorials. He was elected a member of the Glaucoma Research Society, which is limited to 100 active members worldwide, promoting excellence in glaucoma research. He was also voted among the 100 most influential ophthalmologists worldwide in 2014 and 2016. He received awards recognising his contribution to ophthalmology in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore and China.

Professor Clare Futter

Prof Futter developed her interest in endocytosis and membrane traffic, as well as expertise in electron microscopy, as a postdoc working with Colin Hopkins first at Imperial College London and then at the Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at UCL. She was then offered a lectureship at UCL IoO where she began to set up her own group in 2001. Prof Futter soon discovered that the eye was rich in trafficking possibilities and began to develop a particular interest in the retinal pigment epithelium and the role of membrane traffic defects in retinal degenerative disease. Her current research centres around the role of lysosome dysfunction in the pathology of early AMD.

“Communication, collaboration and a supportive environment were crucial to me as a new PI at the institute 20 years ago and I welcome the opportunity to help foster such a culture at the today as Lead of the Development, Aging and Disease theme.
Prof Clare Futter

Dr Adam Dubis

Dr Adam Dubis is Associate Professor and Advanced Human Retinal Imaging Specialist, NIHR Biomedical Resource Centre Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL IoO. He is a vision scientist specialising in understanding the structure/functional relationships underlying human vision. His early work looked at understanding variation in retinal anatomy across diverse populations. This work continues in characterisation of normal ocular anatomy and variation in disease. He is interested in applying deep learning techniques to multimodal datasets. The goal is to develop classification tools that may be used to expand ophthalmic expertise to the developing word and increase research efficiency through improved image analysis and more accurate clinical trial design. In addition to his research, he has also developed several modules on digital health tech and opportunities.

“It is clear that the future is data driven, and the complexity of data is continually increasing. Whether it be controlling robot-assisted bench top experiments, extracting features from confocal microscopy, or analysing population data to find new trends to research. This requires an ever-increasing amount of computer programming skill and understanding of population dynamics. Working with the Theme lead, my goal is to provide access to training to improve skills in this space and support growth of population and data science across the institute.
Dr Adam Dubis

Dr Ryan MacDonald

Dr Ryan MacDonald is a BBSRC David Phillips fellow who joined the IoO in July 2019. His research focuses on how a healthy retina is built and maintained throughout life. More specifically, his research group used the zebrafish to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in Muller glial contact with neurons in the developing and ageing retina. His goal as deputy theme lead is to work closely with Clare to improve communication within, and between, PIs in the themes and enhance the support for researchers at all career stages.

Dr Amanda Carr

Amanda completed a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Manchester, examining the effects of light on biological clocks before moving to the UCL Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, where she studied light driven biological rhythms in vertebrate cells.
Amanda moved to the UCL IoO in 2006 to investigate the therapeutic potential of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells to transdifferentiate into retinal cells. She later began work with The London Project to Cure Blindness, contributing to the development of a cellular therapy for age-related macular degeneration using human embryonic stem cell-derived RPE. Amanda’s research now focuses on using stem cells to provide insights into the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind vision loss and develop new approaches to treat degenerative and inherited blindness.

“The IoO is a world leader in the development of rescue, repair and regeneration strategies for vision loss. I’m very much looking forward to working with researchers within the institute to build on an already outstanding record of success and achievement. I’m excited about the prospect of encouraging new conversations and interactions between the institute, UCL and the wider research community, leading to the development of fresh initiatives for research, education and enterprise.
Dr Amanda Carr

Dr Tessa Dekker

After completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Amsterdam, Dr Dekker obtained her PhD, funded by a Marie Curie Centre of Excellence Grant, at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London. In that project she studied the development of object representations in the dorsal and ventral stream. In her postdoc, she worked with Dr Marko Nardini at the UCL IoO to study the development of visual and motor integration and its neural basis. In January 2016, she became a Research Fellow at the UCL Division of Language and Psychology on an ESRC Future Leaders Fellowship, followed by the Moorfields Eye Charity Career Development Award in 2019/20. She has recently started a staff position based half at the IoO and half at Experimental Psychology at the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, where she leads the Child Vision Lab. Her lab focuses on how genes, brains, and experience interact during development to shape how we see the world, taking a multi-method approach that combines psychophysics, eye-tracking, EEG, computational and mathematical modelling, and state-of the art fMRI methods (multivariate methods based in machine learning, model fitting to resolve neural population tuning-curves).

Image

Photos, from left to right, top to bottom: Prof Pete Coffey, Prof Paul Foster, Prof Clare Futter, Prof Andrew Stockman, Dr Adam Dubis, Dr Tessa Dekker, Dr Amanda Carr, Dr Ryan MacDonald.