Dr. Gyan Prakash is Director of Office of International Program Activities at National Eye Institute (NEI)- National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. He served as the first Director of Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI), a pioneer scientific research and product development program in the US Government with a budget of US$ 1.6 Billion. Before joining the U.S. Gov’t, Dr. Prakash served as the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President at AMAR International, a life science program management company in the USA. Previously, he served as the President and CEO of Metastatin Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Prakash earned his international program management experience at Pfizer world headquarters in New York in several leadership roles. He has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences earned at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and MBA in Management and fellowships at UCLA School of Medicine and Centers for Disease Control. He is the founding President of Global Eye Genetics Consortium (GEGC), previously Asian Eye Genetics Consortium (AEGC). Dr. Takeshi Iwata is Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology Division at National Institute of Sensory Organs, National Hospital Organization Tokyo Medical Center in Tokyo, Japan. He is known for his pioneering work in the field of retinal genetics and has worked at National Institutes of Health (NIH)- National Eye Institute (NEI) in Bethesda, MD, USA, in retina genetics laboratory, headed by Dr. George Inana. He and Dr. Inana moved to Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine in Miami, Florida and continued working on inherited retinal diseases. Dr. Iwata returned to NEI laboratory headed by Dr. Deborah Carper on another major retinal disease, the diabetic retinopathy. Dr. Iwata earned his PhD at Meijo University in Japan. He is currently serving as President of Japan Eye Genetics Consortium (JEGC) and Global Eye Genetics Consortium (GEGC).
