Winners of the 2024 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics Announced

The 2024 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics is awarded to four inventors of adaptive optics technologies for imaging the human retina: Dr Junzhong Liang, Professor Donald T. Miller, Professor Austin Roorda and Professor David R. Williams

LONDON, Nov. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Founded in 1972 by the British industrialist and philanthropist Lord J. Arthur Rank, the prestigious Rank Prize is awarded biennially in the fields of nutrition and optoelectronics.

The 2024 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics is awarded to four internationally leading scientists for the development of instruments that use adaptive optics technologies to capture high-resolution images of the living human retina. Their research has generated new fundamental insights into the structure and function of the human eye as well as new clinical interventions to remedy sight loss from common disorders.

The adaptive optics retinal imaging techniques pioneered by the prizewinners have enabled microscopic, real-time visualisation of the only part of the brain visible to the external world — the retina — without invasive surgery, driving advances in the understanding and betterment of human vision.

The four winning scientists are:

• Dr Junzhong Liang
• Professor Donald T. Miller
• Professor Austin Roorda
• Professor David R. Williams

Professor Donal Bradley CBE FRS, Chair of Rank Prize Optoelectronics Committee: "The prize recognizes a seminal contribution to imaging within the eye that opens new opportunities to understand this complex optical instrument and to improve eyesight through precise interventions. The winners are to be commended both on their highly insightful contributions to vision science and their subsequent development of applications."

The Prize will be awarded formally at an event in London on 1 July 2024.

About Rank Prize

At Rank Prize we have been celebrating outstanding scientific achievements since 1972.

We bring together young researchers and the most eminent in their fields. Those fields are nutrition and optoelectronics: the two disciplines our founder Lord Rank built his businesses upon.

We support talented researchers with grants, studentships and lectures.

We host symposia unlike any others. Together, we discuss. We debate. We challenge. We spur each other on, and make connections that last.

And with our Prize, we celebrate the breakthrough ideas that emerge, the people behind them, and the difference they make to the world. Find out more at www.rankprize.org.

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SOURCE Rank Prize