Moorfields’ Professor Peng Khaw becomes president elect of international research organisation

Professor Peng Tee Khaw, director of research and development at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has been named president-elect by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). 

ARVO is the largest eye and vision research organisation in the world, including more than 12,500 eye and vision researchers from over 80 countries. ARVO encourages and assists research, training, publication and knowledge-sharing in vision and ophthalmology.

Professor Khaw has been an ARVO member since 1990 and has served as a member and chair of the Glaucoma Section Program Committee. He has won many international prizes including the first ARVO Pfizer Translational Award. He is well placed to take on this position, with a long academic track record having published more than 350 papers, chapters and books including the ABC of Eyes – the most popular ophthalmology book in the UK for GPs and medical students and has helped to raise over £50million for research and new facilities.

Declan Flanagan, Moorfields’ medical director, said of Professor Khaw’s upcoming presidency, “Moorfields encourages research and the sharing of knowledge. This is how we can continue to develop and provide cutting edge services to our patients.  We at Moorfields are delighted that Peng has been elected to this role and know that as the first ARVO president from the UK, he will fly the flag proudly.”

"As the second international president of ARVO, Dr. Peng Tee Khaw will bring a clinical as well as a basic science perspective to the organisation, which is important as vision research becomes increasingly translational and multinational," said ARVO executive vice president Sally S. Atherton, PhD, FARVO. "His broad view of vision research will guide ARVO as it continues to grow and continues to be the international meeting where vision researchers come to present their data and interact with other vision researchers from all over the world."

Professor Khaw is a professor of glaucoma and ocular healing and consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields, as well as a director of the National Institute for Health Biomedical Research Centre for Ophthalmology and the programme director for the eyes and vision theme of UCL Partners, one of the UK’s first academic health science centres. He is also a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences; Royal College of Ophthalmologists; Royal College of Surgeons; Society of Biology; Royal College of Physicians; Royal College of Pathologists, as well as Senior Investigator of the UK National Institute of Health Research. His research interests include wound healing, glaucoma surgery, stem cells and optic nerve regeneration. 

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Notes to editors

• For further information, please contact Dominic Stevenson, PR and Communications officer, on 020 7566 2628 or dominic.stevenson@moorfields.nhs.uk
• Moorfields is one of the world’s leading eye hospitals, providing expertise in clinical care, research and education. We have provided excellence in eye care for more than 200 years and we continue to be at the forefront of new breakthroughs and developments.  We are an integral part of one of the UK’s first academic health science centres, UCL Partners, and recently celebrated five years as one of the country’s first NHS foundation trusts.
• We treat the entire range of eye diseases, from common complaints to rare conditions which require treatments not available anywhere else in the UK. We dealt with more than 450,000 patient visits in 2010/11 at our main hospital base in London’s City Road and at 19 other sites in and around the capital, enabling us to provide expert care closer to patients’ homes.
• With our research partners at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, we run one of the largest ophthalmic research programmes in the world and have the highest measure of scientific productivity and impact in the world for our research activity.
• For further information, please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk.