Retina4Future - COST Action CA24105

Short Bio: Ahmet Okay Caglayan, MD, is a Professor of Medical Genetics at Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Medicine, Türkiye. His research focuses on genomic medicine, rare genetic disorders, and translational multi-omics, encompassing whole-genome and long-read sequencing, transcriptomics, and biomarker discovery. His work aims to elucidate the molecular basis of inherited diseases and translate genomic findings into clinically actionable biomarkers and precision medicine approaches. He has extensive experience in international collaborative research, biobanking, and multi-omics data integration. His expertise is highly relevant to inherited retinal diseases, particularly in genomic diagnosis, novel biomarker discovery, and the integration of multi-omics data with advanced computational approaches to advance precision ophthalmology.

Short Bio: I am a professor for experimental retinology, with a PhD in neurobiology and a habilitation in experimental ophthalmology. My main focus is age-related macular degeneration, with special interests in understanding the cellular pathology (mainly concerning the retinal pigment epithelium), making better in-vitro models (mainly porcine), and developing new therapies, especially from marine compounds.

Short Bio: I am a PhD candidate in Biomedicine at NOVA Medical School, working at the interface of biomaterials, cell biology and ophthalmology. My main PhD project focuses on microphysiological models and drug-releasing coatings for glaucoma drainage devices, aiming to improve local antiproliferative strategies after glaucoma surgery. In parallel, I contribute to retinal gene therapy projects in the Gene Therapy Lab, including work on RBP3 as a potential photoreceptor-targeting strategy for non-viral vectors in retinal degeneration, and ACE2 overexpression as a way to modulate the protective renin–angiotensin system axis in diabetic retinopathy. Together, my current research combines controlled drug delivery, retinal biology, gene delivery and disease modelling.