Associate Professor Lauren Ayton, a co-leader of CERA’s Retinal Gene Therapy Research Unit and VENTURE Study, has been appointed to the organisation’s executive team.

Associate Professor Ayton, who is also Head of the Vision Optimisation Unit in the Department of Optometry and interim Associate Dean of Innovation and Enterprise in the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, joins the executive team this month.

Her appointment is the latest chapter in her long association with CERA which began as a post-doctoral researcher working with Professor Robyn Guymer AM in the Macular Research Unit in 2010.

She later became clinical team leader on the Bionic Eye Project – working closely with Associate Professor Penny Allen and her team before leaving CERA for the United States in 2017.

During her time in the US, Associate Professor Ayton was Director of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at Bionic Eye Technologies, a start up company from Harvard and Cornell Universities.

Since returning to Australia, her research program and impact has grown to encompass collaborative projects aimed at improving the lives of people living with inherited retinal disease – the leading cause of blindness in working age Australians.

She now co-leads of the Retinal Gene Therapy Research Unit at CERA with Dr Tom Edwards, and the VENTURE Inherited Retinal Diseases Registry has grown to include more than 450 participants and is the only Australian site for the Foundation Fighting Blindness Uni Rare Gene Study.

Associate Professor Ayton is also a co-leader of the Ocular Genomics Hub, part of the Advanced Genomics Collaboration, with colleague Dr Ceecee Britten-Jones – which is using cutting edge DNA sequencing technology to discover the genetic causes of inherited retinal disease.

She is an investigator at Cerulea Clinical Trials and has been involved in 11 industry-sponsored trials for inherited retinal disease.

Managing Director Professor Keith Martin says Associate Professor Ayton’s appointment to CERA’s leadership reflects its strong commitment to inherited retinal disease research.

“Throughout her career Lauren has been a champion of innovation in vision research,” he says.

“She is known for her passion for improving the lives of people living with inherited retinal disease and getting emerging new treatments to them as quickly as possible.

“She has a unique ability to bring together different groups – consumers, clinicians, researchers and industry – to drive better outcomes for people living with vision loss and blindness.’’

Professor Martin says the appointment also demonstrates the ongoing strength of the vision research collaboration between CERA and the University of Melbourne.

Associate Professor Ayton says she is honored to be joining CERA’s executive team and is excited by the opportunity to develop impactful collaborations with other research organisations, industry and consumer groups.

She is also excited by the potential to link more people with inherited retinal disease with clinical trials through Cerulea Clinical Trials, CERA’s new not-for profit clinical trials centre.

“I am proud of my long involvement with CERA and its commitment to translating the research that happens in the lab into treatments that make a real difference for patients,” she says.

“There has never been a more exciting time to be involved in inherited retinal disease research.

“When I began my career there were no treatments for inherited retinal disease patients were told there was nothing that could be done for them.

“But now we are seeing a wave of new treatments such as gene therapy moving into clinical trial – providing new hope that we can prevent or reverse vision loss.

“With Cerulea Clinical Trials we can now attract more of these trials to Melbourne and give more patients access to emerging therapies.’’