On 26 March, the Rafael del Pino Foundation organised a meeting on advances in the field of ophthalmology with the participation of doctors Luis Fernández-Vega, whose talk was entitled "to see or not to see", and Miguel Coca-Prados, who spoke on "the roadmap and challenges in the field of ophthalmology".
Luis Fernández-Vega Sanz studied Medicine at the Autonomous University of Madrid and later moved to the Complutense University of Madrid where he read his doctoral thesis, obtaining the qualification of "Cum Laude" and was awarded the extraordinary prize of the Doctorate. In 1982, he obtained the Chair of Ophthalmology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Oviedo. He has been president of the Spanish Society of Ocular Implant and Refractive Surgery (SECOIR). He is Head of the Ophthalmology Service of the General Hospital of Asturias and author of more than 100 publications in his speciality, having received numerous awards for his ophthalmological work. He is currently President of the Spanish Society of Ophthalmology, Medical Director of the Fernández-Vega Ophthalmological Institute and President of the Ophthalmological Research Foundation.
Miguel Coca-Prados is Rafael del Pino Professor in genetic ophthalmology of eye diseases. Professor Coca-Prados holds a degree in Biology from the University of Salamanca. Throughout his prolific academic and research career he has been: Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale University; Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Microbiology of Dr. David A. Wolff at Ohio State University; Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at Rockefeller University in New York and Ophthalmology Research Scientist and Principal Investigator in Ophthalmology at Yale University School of Medicine. He has published numerous scientific papers and his research work has received several awards, most recently in 2006, when he received the Yla-Pfizer Visiting Professorship Award. He is a Principal Investigator at the Ophthalmology Research Foundation.