Keith R. Martin

Ringland Anderson Professor and Head of Ophthalmology, University of Melbourne, Australia; Managing Director, Centre for Eye Research Australia; Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Cambridge, UK

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

I’m a keen pianist but was sadly never good enough for this to be a viable career option. Before settling on medicine, I thought about combining my love of physics and music to become an acoustic engineer with the dream of designing concert halls. This would have been another terrible career choice as there must be about three people in the world that make a living that way.

What is a little-known fact about you?

I have a Black Belt in Shotokan Karate.

Make a bold prediction for the future of ophthalmology.

I’m biased, but in my field I think there will be a move beyond intraocular pressure lowering as the only treatment for glaucoma. I think we will have other treatments proven to preserve vision, and eventually restore some lost vision, in glaucoma. I think gene therapy will find increasing applications in ophthalmology, not just in inherited eye disease, but also in common blinding eye diseases, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy.