Professor Peter van Wijngaarden
MBBS(Hons), PhD, FRANZCO
Professor Peter van Wijngaarden was appointed as Executive Director and CEO of The Florey in August 2024. He is committed to amplifying the impact of The Florey as a leader in brain and mental health research.
Professor van Wijngaarden is an ophthalmologist with research interests in biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases, regenerative biology and artificial intelligence. He is an Honorary Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne.
Professor van Wijngaarden completed his medical training at Monash University in 1999, graduating as dux of his class. Following two years of medical residency he embarked on a PhD at Flinders University in South Australia, where he studied the molecular and genetic drivers of abnormal blood vessel development in the retina in disease. He then completed five years of ophthalmology fellowship training and was the top graduate in Australia and New Zealand, receiving the K.G. Howsam Medal for Excellence in 2009.
With the support of a postgraduate scholarship from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Professor van Wijngaarden spent two years at the University of Cambridge where he investigated regenerative biology of the brain. He worked with a team that identified a novel therapeutic strategy to enhance remyelination of the central nervous system. A clinical trial of this therapy for progressive multiple sclerosis is in progress in the UK.
Upon returning to Australia in 2013, Professor van Wijngaarden set up his own research group at the Centre for Eye Research Australia. Working with a team of engineers, physicists and data scientists, he pioneered the application of hyperspectral imaging in ophthalmology. His group was the first to demonstrate that this technology has promise in the detection of amyloid beta in the retina as a rapid, non-invasive biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor van Wijngaarden was a co-investigator for the National Eye Health Survey, the first nationwide study of the prevalence of eye disease in Australia, and which has assisted in defining Australian eye health policy priorities. He is the co-founder and clinical director of KeepSight – a national program for diabetic retinopathy screening that seeks to reach every Australian with diabetes to prevent avoidable blindness. The program currently has over 500,000 active registrants.
Professor van Wijngaarden was a Deputy Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia from 2017 to 2024, serving as interim Managing Director from 2018–2019. He was a Director of Australian Vision Research and was a member of the Medical and Research Committees of the Macular Disease Foundation of Australia for many years.
