The Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers has awarded its prestigious bronze Ruskell Medal for 2023 to Dr Cristina Martinez-Fernandez de la Camara, a senior scientist in the Clinical Ophthalmology Research Group at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford, for her work on RPGR-associated retinal dystrophy.
The Ruskell Medal is awarded each year, by competition, for the best paper published by a researcher up to seven years post-doctorate, whose work is expected to have a significant impact in increasing our understanding of vision and the causes, and possible treatments for, eye disease.
Dr Martinez’s paper, Impaired glutamylation of RPGRORF15 underlies the cone-dominated phenotype associated with truncating distal ORF15 variants, is the product of a study, developed with fellow Oxford scientist and past Ruskell Medal winner Dr Jasmina Cehajic Kapetanovic. It provides an insight into the pathogenesis of cone-dominated RPGR dystrophy and has implications for ongoing gene therapy clinical trials.
Dr Cristina Martinez-Fernandez de la Camara, Ruskell Medal Winner, with the Master, Liz Shilling and Professor Susie Downes, Chair of the WCSM Research, Engagement and Medals Group.