A Career in Ophthalmology

• Report rights infringement
• published: 25 Oct 2014
• views: 1457

Please donate to: http://www.nerc-charity.org.uk/donate Transcription - Professor Andrew Dick – A Career in Ophthalmology For me personally that started 14 years ago on a journey when I arrived in Bristol from the north of Scotland in Aberdeen. National Eye Research Centre was supportive in attributing dowry to me that allowed me to do blue sky thinking and blue sky research. Where that’s led is the development of the laboratories in Bristol University, it’s led to collaborations with the Institute of Ophthalmology in London and beyond into America. We’re now a team, if you look at us all, of over fifty people, creating better research and really research that changes lives. The three instrumental aspects of what the National Eye Research Centre has created is an ability to take fundamental research which I had been performing on a compound called anti-tumour necrosis factor and seeing that being delivered into clinical practice today. It has further supported the ability to undertake clinical trials in that arena; create partnerships with industry; and offer a specialised service delivery for our patients in the region of the South West and now, through NHS England, beyond, into the whole of England. So, one thing is seeing your product being pulled straight through into making a real difference for patients with inflammatory eye disease. So, at any one time, there’s about four million people in the United Kingdom who will have an eye problem which reduces their vision in one or the other eye. This accounts for over six million appointments per annum in England in the ophthalmic departments. There is a real need to overcome the fear patients have of losing their sight, in particular with the ageing population we have. We are underfunded, considering the prevalence of eye disease, for fundamentally tackling ageing eye problems in particular. This includes diabetic retinopathy, it includes age-related macular degeneration, seen in the elderly. But, together with increased funding and collaboration, we can make real differences with partnerships that will create a better future and a healthier eye future for our patients. The excitement now is that our technology is so advanced; our ability to interrogate the gene; how the gene influences cell behaviour; our understanding by imaging tissues at very high resolution; and the eye as a window that we can see through and actually see the tissue now down to a single cell level in order to understand its function, makes the opportunities for making a real difference for treatments, personalised therapy, taking the right patient at the right time and giving them the right treatment. We want to have a seamless ability where patients, scientists and doctors all work as one with a common aim, a common vision and a common ambition to live healthier longer. It’s a culture change that’s required, both in the national health system and in the science fraternity and in communication. It requires people. It requires infrastructure and it requires collaboration and partnership. And, I think we’ve got to a situation where we’ve enabled that infrastructure, supported through the National Eye Research Centre, to make that continuum profit in the future. Please donate to: http://www.nerc-charity.org.uk/donat