Sophie Lemmens

While working as an engineer in the construction sector, Sophie Lemmens realized her passion was in medicine. So she started studying again, and was glad to encounter the field of ophthalmology, which offers a fascinating combination of technology, skills and clinics at a small scale (compared to the human body). After completing a surgical fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland, and obtaining her PhD under the guidance of professor Ingeborg Stalmans (Research Group Ophthalmology, KU Leuven), she recently joined the clinical glaucoma staff at University Hospitals UZ Leuven. The focus of her dissertation was on the quest for retinal biomarkers for neurodegenerative disease, in the context of the ADMIRE (Alzheimer’s Detection using Multimodal Imaging of the Retina) consortium, joining partners from KU Leuven as well as VITO and IMEC. Based on the emerging belief that the eye can be exploited for diagnosis, monitoring of disease progression and effective treatment for CNS diseases, she believes that the future holds great potential for the concept ‘the eye as a window to the brain’.