My research over the past forty years has ranged over a number of ocular problems but has concentrated on the inter-relationships between light and ageing, the mechanisms underlying age-related, diabetic and inherited retinal disease, and the development of lasers for use in ophthalmic diagnosis and surgery. This work has resulted in over four hundred research papers and numerous book chapters and books. I invented and patented the revolutionary Excimer laser for the correction of refractive disorders with in excess of 35 million procedures now having been undertaken worldwide.
I also created the world’s first Diode laser for treating eye problems of diabetes, glaucoma and ageing.
I am editor and co-editor of numerous international journals. I have been awarded the Nettleship Medal of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, the Mackenzie Medal, the Raynor Medal, the Ridley Medal, the Ashton Medal, the Ida Mann Medal and the Lord Crook Gold Medal of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, the Doyne Medal of the Oxford Congress, the Barraquer Medal of the International Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the Kelman Innovator Award of the American Society for Refractive and Cataract surgery, and the Lim Medal of the Singapore National Eye Centre.
I have been visiting professor at numerous universities on every continent. In 2012 I received the Junius-Kuhnt award and Medal for my work on AMD. Between 2011-2012 I was the Master of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers. I was awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours List for services to Ophthalmology and an honorary DSc from Glasgow University in 2013 and delivered the Bowman Lecture and received the Bowman Medal in 2014.
EyeTech²
Abstract
Any wave between 400 and 1400 nm will be absorbed by the pigmented cells and be transmitted inside the eye. The shorter the wavelength, relatively more energy will be absorbed. But it doesn’t matter what wavelength it is in that wave band. If you have a tissue where the blood vessels are quite large then you can’t deposit the blue or green light in the tissue. But in the eye the blood vessels are so small, the percentage of the energy absorbed by the blood vessels is tiny comparing with the percentage absorbed by the melanin cells in the eye. If you want specific exquisite action on the tissue, change the pulse duration not the wavelength. It is very easy from the manufacturing standpoint to produce lasers of 532nm, which are green. With 2RT what we’ve actually done is with the same principle, we use the short pulsed laser, 3 nanoseconds. Again it happens to be 532nm, but it doesn’t necessarily to be 532, it’s only because it is easy to make commercially reliable laser. In trabecular meshwork you have dispersed a few pigmented cells. In the retina, all the epithelium cells are pigmented. We can’t select the tissue, on the contrary, the tissue selects the wavelength. You have to make the laser more selective. There are two key things, one is very short pulse, two is the discontinuous beam managing. We create the selective process by designing the beam of the laser. We make the very special beam, only certain points- 20 to 30um each- within the beam are enhanced and have enough energy to cause the changes. Even if we irradiate 400um, only 15~20% of the cells within the area are affected. So if you look at the laser beam the energy is distributed in a Gaussian pattern across the beam normally, or the squares pattern. In ours the energy is distributed in tiny areas. The beauty of 2RT is, these targeted pigmented epithelial cells will release the enzymes, creating the channels in the Bruch’s membrane so the fluids can get out, while the other epithelial cells will look after the rods and cones by providing the nutrients. Retinal Regeneration, 2RT (Ellex), is designed to treat a range of retinal diseases caused by a compromised retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Bruch’s membrane, the structures responsible for transporting the energy supply to, and removing the waste from, the retinal photoreceptors. 2RT stimulates a biological healing process that results in cellular regeneration, reversing these impaired transport mechanisms.