Prof. Robin Ali
Our Retina International World Congress (RIWC24) takes place from the 5th – 8th June 2024 in the Dublin Royal Convention Centre, in the heart of Dublin city centre.
Our Scientific Committee has been working relentlessly to secure an impressive lineup of outstanding speakers to shed light on this research area so as part of our Meet the Speaker series, we are delighted to announce one more distinguished speaker.
Robin Ali is Professor of Human Molecular Genetics at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. He is also Theme Leader for Gene Therapy at NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Moorfields Eye Hospital and Director of the Wolfson Gene Therapy Unit, which is the UCL GMP facility for manufacturing clinical grade gene therapy vectors. He is Visiting Professor of Ophthalmology at Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan and Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of MeiraGTx, a UK incorporated gene therapy company with offices in London and New York.
We are delighted to have Prof. Robin Ali with us at the Retina International World Congress talking on Friday, June 7, 11:30 AM – 11:50 AM about ‘Gene therapy in children with severe retinal dystrophy associated with AIPL1 gene defects.’
The main focus of Robin Ali’s research is the development of gene and cell therapy for the treatment of retinal disorders.
Since 1996, he has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers with landmark papers and preclinical proof-of-concept (POC) studies for many different ocular disorders. As chief investigator, he established the world’s first clinical trial of gene therapy for retinopathy. The results from this trial reporting an improvement in vision (NEJM, 2008; NEJM 2015) along with results from two other trials, established POC for gene therapy for inherited retinal degeneration. His group has also provided the first POC for effective transplantation of photoreceptors (Nature 2006; Nature, 2012) that has provided the basis for ES cell-derived photoreceptor transplantation, now a major programme in his laboratory (Nature Biotech 2013). Robin Ali and members of his team have received numerous prizes and awards for their work on developing new treatments for retinal degeneration, including the Pfizer/ARVO Translational Award for Ophthalmology (2010), the Alcon Research Institute Award (2009) and in 2014, Human Gene Therapy journal’s Pioneer Award (to honour the top 12 pioneers in gene therapy).