Harminder Singh Dua, MBBS, DO, DO (Lond), MS, MNAMS, FRCS, FRCOphth., FEBO, MD, PhD., is the chair and professor of ophthalmology, University of Nottingham and is the head of the Division of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. He was associate professor at the Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA when he was invited to chair in Nottingham in April 1994. Professor Dua’s clinical subspecialty interest is in ocular surface/cornea and refractive surgery, and his research interests are in ocular immunology and ocular surface diseases. He holds or has held positions on various national and international councils, board of governors and advisory panels including the Royal College of Ophthalmologists as one of the vice presidents and chairman of education, Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, the Iris Fund, Fight for Sight, Medical Research Council (UK), Sight Savers International, International Ocular Surface Society, and the Eye Research Institute (Philadelphia).

He is currently editor in chief of the British Journal of Ophthalmology and president of EuCornea, the European society of Cornea and Ocular surface disease specialists. He is also president of the European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER) Foundation (EVERf) and past president of EVER. He was recently elected to the distinguished chair of Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis and has been invited to join as member of the American Ophthalmological Society by thesis.

In March 2011 he was elected to the prestigious post of president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, United Kingdom and will commence on the 25 May 2011.

He has over a 200 research publications, 20 published letters, and 14 book chapters to his credit. He has been invited to several international conferences and meetings worldwide as a speaker or chairman of scientific sessions, both clinical and basic science, related to the sub speciality of cornea and ocular surface.

He has received several awards for his research including the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress Founders’ Cup, the Ian Fraser prize, the Julia Duane Scholarship, Spencer Walker Prize, and 18 eponymous lectures including the Duke Elder Lecture at the Royal College of Ophthalmologists annual congress in 2005. He was on three international panels convened to draw up guidelines for the diagnosis and management of ocular surface problems, blepharitis and conjunctivitis (International Ocular Inflammation Society) and dry eye (Delphi panel, Baltimore). He has been endowed with honorary life membership of two international academic societies.

His recent awards include the achievement award for distinguished services, by the American Academy of Ophthalmology (October 2010); the His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud Prevention of Blindness Shield and lecture (awarded on 27 February 2011 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) and the Gold medal lecture by the Ophthalmological society of South Africa (awarded on 25 March 2011). On 13 November 2010, the Times newspaper, UK, published in its Saturday magazine a roll of Britain’s top doctors. Professor Dua was one of five ophthalmologists named in this list.

The cornea and external eye disease service at Nottingham was established under his auspices in 1994 and is now a leading British national centre, especially for ocular surface diseases, attracting tertiary referrals from all over the country and abroad.

To complement and augment this service to patients, he established the first national ocular surface tissue laboratory, sponsored by Nottingham West Lions Club, at the Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham. This has now been upgraded and subsumed into a trust based clinical tissue laboratory to provide processed stem cells and tissue constructs for patient management. The facility was commissioned in 2008 and is accredited by the Human Tissue Authority, UK.