8th UCL Early Career Researchers Symposium
10 June 2025
The 8th Early Career Researchers (ECR) Symposium took place on Tuesday 10 June, at the Darwin Lecture Theatre, UCL Bloomsbury Campus.
Hosted annually by the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, this event is an opportunity for research students and researchers in the early stages of their careers to share their innovative work.
Moorfields Eye Charity, a co-sponsor of the symposium, is proud to support many of the participating researchers through its wide range of funding programmes.
None of it is possible without the tremendous support and the philanthropy and the grants given by Moorfields Eye Charity. They’ve been instrumental to our success not just as an institute and with Moorfields, but to each individual as they gain in their career development through career fellowships, grant awards, ability to travel, prizes at the symposium and just continued support and nurturing again of their careers.
Professor Andrew Dick, director of UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Robert Dufton, Andrew Dick and Alison Hardcastle
The presentations, talks and scientific poster sessions showed off the breadth and depth of the early career researchers’ projects on: eye development, ageing and disease; visual neuroscience and function; population and data science; and rescue, repair and regeneration.
In addition to the presentations, talks, and scientific poster sessions, the symposium offered valuable networking opportunities for attendees throughout the day.
The passion I have for this meeting is because it’s run by the early career researchers. They’re the future, they’re our future leaders. They have the passion, the vision, and increasingly, the knowledge that will make differences to society and our patients, and it’s with their energy and belief that we need to support, nurture and develop their careers.
Professor Andrew Dick, director of UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Highlights
- Aitor Bañón-González, post-doctoral researcher working in Dr Rodrigo Young’s lab presented his research into genetic causes of anophthalmia (no eyes) and microphthalmia (small eyes). They studied gene interactions during eye development and how mutations in key genes can lead to eye malformations by linking mutations found in patients and reproducing them in zebrafish models. Aitor also won the best poster prize! Moorfields Eye Charity funds this research through the Spingboard award to Dr Young.
- Jason Hopley, research technician in Dr Davide Zecchin’s lab, presented his work about developing ways of tracking uveal melanoma and metastasis to the liver by looking at differences in calcium signaling inside the cancer cells. Jason was a runner up for the best oral presentation. Dr Zecchin is a recipient of Moorfields Eye Charity’s career development award.
- The symposium introduced a new feature this year called flash talks, three-minute presentations that gave more researchers the opportunity to showcase their work. Among the presenters were PhD students funded by Moorfields Eye Charity.
Ola Krzywanska from Dr Ryan MacDonald’s lab presented her work on developing killifish as a model of ageing eye.
Ana C Rodriguez from Professor Moosajee’s lab talked about innovative, game-like vision tests to assess crowding and contrast sensitivity in children with vision loss due to mutation in CRB1 gene.
Ariel Ong, Moorfields Eye Charity’s funded research fellow, carried out first systematic review of diagnostic AI tools approved for patient care to assess if they are safe, accurate and effective. Her findings suggest that we need more data and information to fully evaluate how trustworthy are the clinical AI tools.
Posters
Posters
- Rose Avient, Moorfields Eye Charity’s PhD student in Dr Colin Chu’s lab, presented her research on how immune cells react to gene therapy making it less effective in fixing eye conditions caused by faulty genes. Rose also won a prize for best data visualisation.
- Rachael Canavan, Moorfields Eye Charity’s PhD student in Dr Michael Crossland’s lab, presented a qualitative study of mental wellbeing in adults with vision impairment from inherited eye disease. The project aims to develop tailored support like counselling programs, community wellbeing support initiatives and communication training for clinicians, to ensure better emotional support young people with vision impairment.
- Gabriela Bordeanu, Moorfields Eye Charity’s PhD project in Professor Alison Hardcastle lab, presented her work on modelling and investigating death of photoreceptors in the retinal organoids with mutations that cause retinitis pigmentosa in patients.
Thank you
It was wonderful to hear about and celebrate the amazing research by early career researchers and meet the next generation of researchers in eye health.
Moorfields Eye Charity staff at the stall
We want to say a huge thank you to all who helped judge the lay summaries and contributed to choosing the winners: Friends of Moorfields volunteers, lay audience members and Moorfields Eye Charity staff. Congratulations to our winner Shafi Balal and runner-up Lynn Kandakji.
Congratulations to all prize winners and to the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology for organising such a brilliant event, with so many remarkable talks. We’re proud to sponsor the Early Career Researchers Symposium and support early career students in their scientific journey.
