Dr Thomas Edwards is a vitreoretinal surgeon and leads CERA’s Retinal Gene Therapy Research team. He is one of a handful of surgeons in Australia who has expertise in retinal gene therapy surgery and also has an interest in technical innovations such as robotics.

He undertook a PhD at the University of Cambridge in medical genetics before completing his ophthalmology training at The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne.

In 2014, he was awarded a Nuffield Medical Fellowship by the Australian Academy of Sciences to undertake specialist vitreoretinal surgical training and research under Professor Robert MacLaren at the University of Oxford. Here, he worked on the world-first clinical trial of gene therapy to treat choroideremia, a type of inherited retinal degeneration.

Dr Edwards’ research covers both clinical and preclinical programs. In collaboration with Professor Lauren Ayton AM, he leads the VENTURE inherited retinal disease (IRD) registry.  He leads several international gene therapy and other pharmaceutical trials through our sister company, Cerulea Clinical Trials. Additionally, his team are developing new gene therapies for IRDs in his laboratory.

Dr Edwards’ research has been supported by funding from organisations such as Australian Vision Research (AVR), and he is a prior recipient of the prestigious University of Melbourne Annemarie Manciewicz-Zeldin Fellowship.