Moorfields cornea focus 2025

The 2025 Cornea Focus Meeting is provisionally scheduled to take place on 21st November 2025. The topic will be corneal nerves. To be notified once this is finalised please join the waiting list. You can read about the 2024 meeting below.

Moorfields cornea focus 2024

The Moorfields cornea focus meeting is a non-promotional meeting supported by an educational grant from Santen UK and organised and charied by Professor Sajjad Ahmad, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfields Hospital. Each year the meeting focuses on a different topic.

You can hear more from Mr Ahmad, speaking at the 2023 Cornea focus meeting, by watching the short video below:

Co-chaired by Professor John Dart, The 2024 meeting will be held on 22 November at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK and will focus on Mucous Membrane Pemphigoid (MMP).

We have an exciting agenda featuring a range of expert speakers exploring Mucous membrane pemphigoid. From ocular and systemic involvement in MMP, to the latest advancements in personalised medicine and complex case management.

This is a hybrid event that you can join in-person at the RSM or virtually via live stream.

Who is the course for?

This course is aimed at ophthalmologists, optmetrists, nurses and allied health professionals wishing to update their knowledge about diseases of the cornea.

Accreditation

A certificate of attendance will be awarded at the end of the course. CPD certifcation will be applied for, including GOC points.

The 2025 meeting

£0.00

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Start Date

Duration

Taught by

Sajjad Ahmad

Sajjad Ahmad is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon and the Lead for Experimental Medicine at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, UK. His expertise is in corneal and external eye diseases, particularly inflammatory ocular surface disorders and ocular surface reconstruction. He holds an honorary Associate Clinical Professor position at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, where he runs a laboratory group focusing on corneal stem cell biology and the development of cellular therapies for the eye. Dr Ahmad’s research also investigates translational medicine, analysing drugs, cell therapies and surgical devices for the eye through the regulatory pathway to first-in-human or first-in-eye clinical trials. He is currently running two Phase 1 clinical trials, including a Medical Research Council-funded trial. He is an Ophthalmic Advisor to the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). He also works with the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) to evaluate ophthalmic therapies for National Health Service (NHS) application.

Alfonso Vasquez-Perez

Alfonso Vasquez-Perez is a consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital and is the lead for the Osteo-Odonto-keratoprosthesis (OOKP) Service; a highly specialised treatment for corneal blindness provided only in few centres around the world. His areas of expertise includes corneal surgery, keratoprosthesis (KPro), cataracts and refractive surgery. He took his initial training in Barcelona and later he completed two advanced sub-specialist training fellowships in Cornea and Refractive Surgery in the UK, first in Brighton and then at Moorfields Eye Hospital. He was awarded the Certificate in Laser Refractive Surgery (CertLRS) and he is one of the few UK surgeons who also obtained the Certification in Cataract and Refractive Surgery from The European Board of Ophthalmology (FEBOS-CR). As a consultant surgeon at Moorfields has trained many surgical fellows from the UK and all over the world and frequently present his research work in national and international conferences. His publications include 3 book chapter and over 40 articles in ophthalmic journals.

Professor Pascal Joly

Prof Joly has been Professor of Dermatology at Rouen University Hospital since 1994 and Head of the Dermatology department since 2004. He is Former vice dean for research at the Faculty of Medicine, President of the French Society of Dermatology, Head of the osteoarticular and skin covering division, Director of the French reference centre for autoimmune blistering diseases and Coordinator of the European research network on autoimmune bullous diseases. Prof Joly’s main interests are immunodermatology and oncodermatology, including basic research and clinical and therapeutic trials on : autoimmune bullous skin diseases, drug-induced reactions, malignant melanoma and cutaneous lymphoma. He has been the President of the French Study Group on Autoimmune blistering diseases for 10 years. This group includes 26 Dermatologic centers in France and has conducted many randomized therapeutic trials in autoimmune bullous skin diseases. Prof Joly has been participating for 10 years in the French Study Group on Cutaneous Lymphomas, one of the most active group in the world on this topic. he has been involved in all the numerous studies performed by this group, that have been published in many journals of Dermatology. Prof Joly is the author of 550 international publications including : N Engl J Med, Nature, Nat Gen, Lancet, Ann Int Med, BMJ, Blood, J Clin Oncol, J Immunol, Arthritis and Reumatism , J Infect Dis, Human Mol Genetics, Am J Surg Pathol, Genes Chromosomes, Cancer, Genes Immunity, J Invest Dermatol, Arch Dermatol, J Am Acad Dermatol, Br J Dermatol, Dermatology. He has won a number of scientific awards..

Jennifer Thorne

Jennifer Thorne, M.D., Ph.D., is the Cross Family Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, where she is also chief of the Division of Ocular Immunology and Uveitis. Prof. Thorne holds a joint appointment as professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An internationally recognized and board-certified ophthalmologist, Prof. Thorne is an expert in the evaluation and management of patients with uveitis and other related immune-mediated disorders. She has published over 300 articles and book chapters on uveitis and ocular immunology, won approximately 30 scientific and clinical awards, and has participated in numerous uveitis clinical trials. Prof. Thorne's research interests include posterior uveitis including birdshot chorioretinitis, multifocal choroiditis and punctate inner choroiditis. She also studies juvenile idiopathic arthritis-related uveitis, mucous membrane pemphigoid, and treatment outcomes of immunosuppressive drug therapy. Dr. Thorne is active in national and international ophthalmology and uveitis-related forums, for example, she was President of the American Uveitis Society and remains part of its leadership team, was a member of the Executive and Steering Committees of the Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature (SUN) Working Group and played advisory and editorial roles in the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Ocular Immunology and Inflammation journal, and more. She has also served as an advisor and consultant for ophthalmic pharma companies, such as Allergan, AbbVie, Gilead, and more. Prof. Thorne received her M.D. degree from the University of Virginia and completed her ophthalmology residency at the University of Pennsylvania's Scheie Eye Institute. She completed her uveitis fellowship at Wilmer and completed her Ph.D. in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Daniel Sibley

Daniel Sibley is a consultant ophthalmologist with a specialist interest in cornea, external eye diseases and cataract at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. Daniel has the following credentials Batchelor of Medicine and Surgery (BMBS), Brighton and Sussex Medical School BSc (Hons) Neuroscience, University of Sussex Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (FRCOphth) Certificate in Laser and Refractive Surgery (CertLRS), Royal College of Ophthalmologists Post Graduate diploma in cataract and refractive surgery (PGDipCatRef), Ulster University General Medical Council United Kingdom & Ireland Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons (UKISCRS).

Thomas Tull

Thomas Tull is a Wellcome Trust clinical research fellow and honorary consultant dermatologist at St John’s Institute of Dermatology, King’s College London. During his training he completed a PhD in B cell immunology which focussed on early B cell developmental pathways and how these are defective in systemic lupus erythematosus. He was then awarded a Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellowship and has set up a lab focussed on the investigation of pathogenic B cell responses in autoimmune skin disease. Dr Tull’s clinical subspecialty interests are in autoimmune bullous disease and connective tissue disease. He currently works as an honorary consultant within the immunobullous and lupus clinics at St John’s Institute and manages large cohorts of patients with these conditions.

David Abraham

David Abraham is a Professor of Cell and Molecular biology at University College London. After gaining a BSc at Queen Elizabeth College and a PhD at King’s College, London he held a research fellowship at the Kennedy Institute for Rheumatology, before becoming a Medical Research Council (UKRI) Travelling Fellow at UC Berkeley and the Jackson Laboratory in the USA. On returning to the UK he worked as a senior scientist in genetics and mammalian development at the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research and then moved to UCL. He is currently head of the research Department of Inflammation and Rare Diseases at UCL, and Director of the UCL Centre for Rheumatology, UCL Royal Free Hospital campus. His major academic interests are in the molecular basis of inflammatory autoimmune connective tissue disorders, primarily systemic sclerosis (scleroderma). His research includes the study of the molecular and cell biology of inflammation, connective tissue diseases, tissue repair processes including wound healing, and molecular mechanisms underlying tissue scarring and fibrosis in target organs including the eye, heart, lung and skin. He has development and used novel in vivo systems of human disease (genetically modified animals) as pre-clinical models to study the pathogenesis and treatment of inflammatory connective tissue diseases. The Royal Free Hospital host an internationally recognised centre for the referral, management and treatment of scleroderma, and with clinical colleagues has determined key areas of disease pathogenesis, and the identification of biomarkers and new targets for therapy. He has managed collaborations and interactions with industrial partners, leading to translation studies through validation into clinical trials. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and was elected honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians for his work on human disease and development of new therapies.

Jane Setterfield

Jane Setterfield is Professor of Oral and Dermatological Medicine at King’s College London and Consultant in Dermatology at St John’s Institute of Dermatology, Guy’s & St Thomas Hospitals. She trained in dentistry at The Royal London Hospital, medicine at University College London and dermatology at St John’s Institute. She has undertaken research at the University of Connecticut, USA, and completed an MD thesis investigating the clinicopathological associations in mucous membrane pemphigoid. Her current research includes diagnostic techniques, pathogenic mechanisms, clinical outcome measures and optimising therapeutic approaches for mucocutaneous diseases. She leads the Oral Dermatology Service both at St John’s Institute and the Department Oral Medicine Guy’s Dental Institute. Areas of special clinical interest: immunobullous diseases, lichenoid disorders vulval dermatoses and mucocutaneous diseases.

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