Professor
Susan Downes
Professor Susan Downes initially met Professor Stanga when they were both doing a fellowship under Professor Alan Bird’s supervision. When Professor Stanga was looking to establish an Inherited Retinal Dystrophies (“genetic retinal diseases”) service at The Retina Clinic London, he invited Professor Susan Downes to lead it.
Professor Downes combines private practice work with work in the National Health Service (NHS) where she has been a Consultant at the Oxford Eye Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals University Foundation Trust since 2000; having completed post-residency clinical and research fellowships in Medical Retina at Moorfields Eye Hospital. During this time she obtained a higher degree (MD 2000) in inherited retinal degeneration (IRD) at the Institute of Ophthalmology, UCL, and Moorfields Eye Hospital.
She was awarded a gold medal by the Oxford University Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust for outstanding achievement (2014) and is in the Top List of Women in European Vision Research and Ophthalmology (http://www.vision-research.eu/index.php?id=1298, 2021)
She is the Ophthalmology Clinical Research Network lead for Thames Valley and South Midlands representing them nationally. She set up,and is the Clinical Lead for the Eye Research Group Oxford (ERGO), and is PI and co-PI on projects with wide ranging collaborations in retinal disease and is an examiner and supervisor for DPhils.
Professor Downes is the lead for Oxford Centre for the European Network for Rare Eye Diseases (ERN). She has collaborations within the University of Oxford, throughout the UK and internationally.
She has over 100 publications and gives invited national and international presentations.
Together with colleagues from Clinical Genetics, the Clinical Genetics Laboratory and the University of Oxford, funded by the Biomedical Science Centre of Excellence, she was involved in evaluating next generation sequencing (NGS) in IRD, and Oxford is now one of the 3 specialist genomic Eye testing hubs for NHS genetic testing.
Together with colleagues, she was a founder member and a previous chair of the steering group of the United Kingdom Eye Genetics Group (UKEGG).
She has a track record in teaching and training of Allied Health Professionals, medical students, and ophthalmology trainees having been Ophthalmology Foundation and 5th year medical student lead since 2015.
Professor Downes has set up an IRD diagnostic and genetic testing service as well as participates in clinical research and trials at The Retina Clinic London
