Professor Mariya Moosajee MBBS BSc PhD FRCOphth

Professor of Molecular Ophthalmology, University College London (UCL), London

Group Leader of Ocular Genomics and Therapeutics, The Francis Crick Institute, London

Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist, Genetic Eye Disease, Moorfields Eye Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London 

Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Development Fellow, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London

Mariya is a world-class Clinician Scientist who has undertaken joint academic and clinical training in Ophthalmology through the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Integrated Academic Training Programme.

She obtained first class honours for her BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in 2000, followed by her MBBS in 2003 from Imperial College London. She was also awarded her PhD in Molecular Ophthalmology in 2009 from Imperial College London.

Mariya completed her Ophthalmology Specialist Training in the London Deanery. In 2011, she was awarded an NIHR Academic Clinical Lectureship at the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, during which she established her own research group in the department of Ocular Biology and Therapeutics. In 2015, she became a Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and undertook her clinical fellowship at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in Paediatric Ophthalmology and Adult Retinal Genetics at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Over the past 10 years, Mariya’s research has focused on investigating the molecular aetiology and disease mechanisms causing congenital eye anomalies and inherited retinal disease. She also has a strong focus on developing novel molecular therapies for genetic eye disease with clinical translation.

In 2016, Mariya was awarded the prestigious five year Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Development Fellowship to unravel the molecular complexity behind ocular maldevelopment and normal human eye development. Alongside this, Mariya has also received a NIHR Rare Disease Translational Research Collaboration Award to support translation of small molecule drugs for the treatment of inherited retinal disease such as Choroideremia and Usher syndrome.

Mariya’s ultimate goal is to improve the lives of patients with genetic eye disease by directly improving molecular diagnosis, understanding the natural history of the disease through deep phenotyping and developing novel treatments to counter these blinding diseases.