Francesca Cordeiro

About Francesca Cordeiro

Chair and Professor of Ophthalmology at Imperial College London; Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at Western Eye Hospital, London, UK

What major industry trends are catching your attention right now?

Neuroprotection, biomarkers, and endpoints.

What is a little-known fact about you?

I’m passionate about lawn tennis.

Make a bold prediction for the future of ophthalmology.

The eye will be used as part of personalized medicine as a window into the brain.

If you weren’t an ophthalmologist, what would you be doing instead?

As a schoolgirl, I thought about becoming a barrister… But ophthalmology is so much more interesting.

How do you think AI and machine learning will impact ophthalmology?

It will help in enabling more patients to be assessed remotely and by non-ophthalmologists; however, I believe it will be a support tool only, and therefore an ophthalmologist in the loop will always be necessary.

What global trends in eye health should ophthalmologists be aware of?

Personalized medicine, prevention of disease before it leads to irreversible vision loss.