Chief Investigator for the CRN Portfolio Non-Commercial Study “Recording Retinal Responses in Health and Disease”: current recruitment sites are Moorfields Eye Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital.

My lab investigates human retinal function in health and disease, using in vivo electrophysiology (recording the electrical responses produced by retinal neurons in response to light) and complementary approaches including retinal imaging, genetic investigation and machine learning. The retina works by generating electrical signals in response to light; these signals are processed and eventually transmitted to the brain allowing us to see. Analysing these responses can shed light on normal visual function and mechanisms of disease, particularly inherited retinal disease. Myopia (short-sightedness) appears to be driven by retinal signals: understanding retinal electrophysiology may help us understand mechanisms of myopia development. Also, retinal signalling has similarities with processes occurring in the brain, and alterations in retinal responses could yield insight the changes occurring in some neurological diseases. 

Research informed by these investigations has been published in a number of high impact journals including Nature Genetics, Ophthalmology and Progress in Retinal and Eye Research. In a research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, we recorded retinal electrical responses following smartphone viewing, showing that the “blindness” reported by some patients was consistent with normal retinal adaptation (the letter received widespread media coverage and was number 23 of the 100 most discussed articles of 2016 https://www.altmetric.com/top100/2016/). Major sources of current funding include a £1.1 million 5-year fellowship award from the Wellcome Trust and grants from Moorfields Eye Charity.

Key collaborators include Andrew Webster (UCL), Michel Michaelides (UCL), Gavin Arno (UCL), Pearse Keane (UCL), Chris Hammond (KCL), Pirro Hysi (KCL), Anthony Robson (Moorfields), Tony Moore (UCSF), Trevor Lamb (Australian National University), John Robson (University of Houston, University of Cambridge), Samantha De Silva (University of Oxford), Katie Williams (KCL), Moin Mohamed (St Thomas’ Hospital).

Current Lab Members

Research Scientists

Mr Mark Simcoe – investigating genetic epidemiology of eye diseases (co-supervisor: Dr Pirro Hysi).

Dr Jim Bellingham – genetic investigation of inherited retinal diseases (co-supervisor: Dr Gavin Arno).

Dr Sophie Glinton – applying machine learning methods to clinical electroretinography datasets (co-supervisor: Dr Anthony Robson).

PhD Students

Miss Xiaofan Jiang – developing new electroretinogram protocols to monitor retinal adaptation. (Awarded distinction for MSc project exploring isolated rod and cone system responses).

Miss Zihe Xu (based at KCL, primary supervisor: Dr Pirro Hysi) – associations between myopia-associated genetic loci and electrophysiology parameters. (Awarded distinction for MSc project on retinal light adaptation).

Research Students

Miss Megan Margetts (Cambridge University) - electroretinogram responses in Vitamin A deficiency (received the Dodt Award at the Annual Symposium of the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision in 2020).

Mr Remi Rufus-Toye (Cambridge University) – investigating human cone photoreceptor light-sensitive current at early times following onset of intense backgrounds (received a Rob Clarke abstract award at the Future Physiology meeting organised by the Physiological Society in 2020).