MCAA Best Innovator Award: Dimitrios Christaras

Share the journey that led you to this Award.

My background is in the physical sciences: a first degree in applied mathematics and physics, a master's in particle physics, and a PhD in biomedical optics. I now work at the interface between academic research and product development in ophthalmology.

My focus is on building novel optical systems that measure properties of the eye not accessible by conventional means. My PhD at the University of Murcia under Pablo Artal focused on light scattering in vision and imaging. One outcome of that work was a new optical method with applications in eye diagnostics, which was later granted aEuropean patent.

In parallel, I co-founded Diestia Systems, an Athens-based company developing optical instruments for vision research and clinical diagnostics, and I now lead R&D at Lightfield Medical, where we have developed a fully automated anterior-segment imaging platform, a noveldiagnostic instrumentcurrently in late-stage testing. It is a technology that could shift how ophthalmic imaging is performed.  

I have been an MCAA member since 2014 and am currently the Chair of the Greece Chapter. The Award recognises a body of work that has always been collaborative, so the credit belongs as much to the colleagues, mentors, and clinical partners I have worked with as it does to me. It feels less like a personal milestone and more of a useful checkpoint, that the direction is one others find worth supporting.  

What are your future goals?

My ultimate objective is to see ideas reach patients and to do so in a form that does not depend on income or geography. The path from a working prototype in the lab to a device a clinician actually uses is long and unforgiving: regulatory, clinical, manufacturing, and commercial hurdles each filter out most of what looks promising on the bench.

None of this is made easier by the current state of academia, which is underfunded and unstable, with many scientists genuinely struggling. My advice is to hang on, and to do so collectively: network, collaborate, promote each other's work, and have some fun while doing it. The MCAA is one of the few places where all of that happens at once.