Dr Ian MacCormick
Senior Clinical Lecturer
- Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, College of Science & Engineering
Contact details
- Email: imaccorm@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Robert O Curle Suite, Institute for Regeneration and Repair
Edinburgh BioQuarter, 4-5 Little France Drive - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH16 4UU
Background
Ian became interested in the microvasculature of the retina and brain, and how one might reflect the other, during medical school at Edinburgh.
During Ophthalmology training he had the privilege of studying retinal manifestations of paediatric cerebral malaria at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust. Paediatric cerebral malaria is an severe acute type of cerebral small vessel disease, a complication of severe P. falciparum malaria, and is the archetypal syndrome in which the retina 'mirrors the brain'. Working as part of a interdisciplinary team spanning Malawi, the UK and USA, Ian helped to show that in this syndrome retinal vessel leakage is very strongly associated with severe brain swelling and death. This research was recognized by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in 2023 with the Ulverscroft award.
He returned to Edinburgh as a SCREDS lecturer in 2018, and continues to work on retinal biomarkers of brain disease and collaborative projects to translate clinical biology into algorithms.
Qualifications
BSc (Neuroscience), MBChB, PhD, FRCOphth
Responsibilities & affiliations
Ian is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, Edinburgh
He is a fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and a registered specialist with the General Medical Council
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Current PhD students supervised
Jamie Burke (jointly with Stuart King and Kenny Baillie)
Nouhoum Diallo (Jointly with Alex Rowe)
Research summary
Ian's research interests include:
- Retinal manifestations of systemic disease
- Particularly disease of the CNS microcirculation, such as sporadic cerebral small vessel disease, severe malaria, diabetes
- Understanding retinal variables as valid surrogates of systemic disease
- Surrogate methodology
- Causal inference
- Analytical methods to convert retinal images into useful information about biology
- Image segmentation
- Using spatial data to infer spatial processes
His publications can be found on Google Scholar and Pubmed:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WgHmDd4AAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1p19C6uMr5xAd/bibliography/public/