Professor Keith Martin appointed Ringland Anderson Chair of Ophthalmology and Managing Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia

Professor Keith Martin has been appointed Ringland Anderson Chair of Ophthalmology and Managing Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA).

Keith was elected as the first Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Cambridge in 2010, making him the youngest full Professor at the University of Cambridge Clinical School at the time. A glaucoma specialist, Professor Martin’s ground-breaking research proved that gene therapy and stem cell therapy can reduce optic nerve damage in experimental models of glaucoma. He is co-founder of Quethera, a Cambridge-based gene therapy company that has developed a gene therapy for glaucoma that is currently progressing towards human clinical trials. His other current main research interest is in the potential for regeneration and repair of nerve damage in the eye and brain.

Clinically, Keith specialises in advanced and complex cases of glaucoma in adults and children, particularly uveitic glaucoma. He also led the Glaucoma Service at Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Keith graduated with first-class honours in neuroscience from the University of Cambridge in 1990 and from the University of Oxford’s Clinical School in 1993. He trained in general medicine and neurology at the Hammersmith Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He completed his higher specialist training in ophthalmology in Cambridge before undertaking three years of research and clinical fellowship training in glaucoma with Harry Quigley at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University and Peng Khaw at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London.

In his new role, Keith will provide leadership in teaching, research and clinical service in ophthalmology within the Department of Surgery, Melbourne Medical School, and at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. In his Managing Director role, he is looking forward to leading the next stage of development of CERA as an internationally outstanding research institute that helps translationally-focused clinicians and scientists to change lives. Keith will take up his appointment on 11 February 2019.