Research Roadshow launches at Moorfields City Road for Rare Disease Day
4th March, 2025
Friends of Moorfields supported the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre to host the special event.
On Friday 28 February, the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre and Friends of Moorfields marked Rare Disease Day by hosting researchers from various labs working in the Institute of Ophthalmology at the Moorfields City Road exhibition space. The event kicks off a research roadshow that will see researchers visit a series of Moorfields sites to chat with patients and staff.
Rare Disease Day raises awareness and generates change for those living with a rare disease and their families. Over the course of the day, researchers from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology talked with patients and staff about their research relating to rare diseases, as well as sharing demonstrations and interactive activities.
The Sarunic Lab kicked the day off with a look at OCT scans, a widely used imaging tool in ophthalmology. The team demonstrated how OCT can help in the diagnosis and monitoring of retinal diseases.
Next, the Carr Lab, which focuses on understanding and creating new therapies for macular diseases, shared insights into how we can look into the eye at a cellular level, and how they work on fixing genetic problems, with cutting-edge technologies like gene editing.
The Cheetham Lab talked with visitors about how genes can cause issues in different types of cells in the eye, explaining how those issues affect the cells’ function, and how treatments are being developed to combat this. The team work on retinal neurodegenerative diseases including Retinitis Pigmentosa, Leber Congenital Amaurosis and Dominant Optic Atrophy.
Friends of Moorfields chief executive Angela Smith dropped by to meet the researchers. “It’s great to be able to help facilitate these leading researchers connecting with patients and staff,” she said. “Thank you to the Health Information Hub team for their hard work on this.”
“We love working with the Friends of Moorfields and all our labs at the Institute of Ophthalmology in creating these engagement events,” said Charlotte Patten, the BRC’s Communications and PPIE Officer. “I found great pleasure in the day speaking to people about taking part in research, especially about the Improving Black Health Outcomes drive currently running for the BioResource at the NIHR.”
The Moorfields BRC will be holding further roadshow events, with more opportunities to meet researchers and learn about their work, at other Moorfields sites in the coming months. Look out for them at a Moorfields site near you!
