ProfessorFrancesca Cordeiro

Professor M Francesca Cordeiro, is a clinician-scientist. She is Chair and Professor of Ophthalmology at Imperial College London, Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist and Research Lead at the Western Eye Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Director of the Imperial College Ophthalmology Research Group (ICORG) Clinical Trials Research Unit (CTU). She is also Professor of Glaucoma and Retinal Neurodegeneration, at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London (UCL), and has founded a start-up Novai Ltd based on DARC Technology. She is a Trustee for the charity Fight for Sight.

She qualified in medicine from St Bartholomew’s Hospital University of London and completed training in general and surgical ophthalmology at Moorfield’s Eye & St Thomas’ Hospitals in London in 2003, following her PhD at UCL in 1998.

Her research is translational - applying molecular and biological approaches to the treatment or pathogenesis of retinal neurodegenerative diseases, including glaucoma, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson's, optic neuritis and diabetes. Early clinical trials stemming from basic science research are performed in the Imperial College Ophthalmology Research Group (ICORG) Clinical Trials Unit, and the aims of this work are to establish new methods of diagnosis of early disease to avoid disability, identify early markers of cell processes in neurodegenerative disease and investigate therapeutic approaches including novel modes of drug delivery and improved treatment strategies.

Her research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust since 1996, including a Vision Research Fellowship, a University Award, a Wellcome Translational Award for the DARC Project and most recently, a Wellcome HICF Award for a Drug Delivery Project. She focuses on novel and translational approaches with a target of saving sight and reducing disability, with over 180 peer-reviewed publications.

She serves on a number of international committees and is currently responsible for glaucoma programmes for ARVO (2017 - 2020), COphy, ISOPT, EVI and EVICRnet, the whole conference programme for EVER (2017 - 2022), and chairs the EGS Neuroprotection SIG. She is on the Editorial Board of various journals including Investigative Ophthalmology, Experimental Eye Research, European Journal of Ophthalmology and Ophthalmic Research.

She has received a number of international awards for this work, including the Lewis Rudin Glaucoma Prize 2005, the Research to Prevent Blindness International Research Scholar Award 2015, the GG2 Diversity Award for Outstanding Achievement in Medicine 2017 and 2019 Duke Elder Award (Royal College of Ophthalmologists) and is frequently asked to give keynote lectures abroad.