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 (NISO), National Hospital Organization Tokyo Medical Center (NHOTMC) in Tokyo, Japan. He is known for his pioneering work in the field of retinal genetics and worked on inherited retinal diseases, inherited optic neuropathy and inherited glaucoma. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland and at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine in Miami, Florida. He continued his work as Director at NISO/NHOTMC. Dr. Iwata earned his PhD from Meijo University in Japan. He is currently serving as President of both Japan Eye Genetics Consortium (JEGC) and Global Eye Genetics Consortium (GEGC).
