We are thrilled to share that our former visiting researcher Dr Honda Chou, who spent a year with LOORG, has launched Taiwan's first dedicated Ocular Oncology Centre at Taoyuan Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

The centre, which opened on 15 April 2026, brings together ophthalmology, radiation oncology, pathology, and medical physics under one multidisciplinary roof. Dr Chou, who trained at the UK National Ocular Oncology Centre, leads the team alongside specialists in intraocular, orbital, and paediatric ocular oncology, with proton beam therapy as a cornerstone of treatment.
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We congratulate Dr Chou and the entire Chang Gung team on this fantastic milestone, and look forward to continuing our collaboration.

Prof Sarah Coupland, Dr Helen Kalirai, and Max Jackson recently visited Epredia's facility in Runcorn to discuss potential collaborations and tour their factory, labs, and digital pathology scanners. The visit provided an excellent opportunity to explore how their advanced imaging technologies could support our ongoing uveal melanoma research. It was very impressive to see their capabilities firsthand, and we're excited about the possibilities for future partnership. Thank you to Ram, Sam and Viktor for your hospitality.

LOORG launches a digital bioresource to tackle rare eye cancers. The Event took place on Wednesday 12th March at The Spine in Liverpool. Professor Sarah Coupland, head of the Liverpool Ocular Oncology Research Group explained "the Trusted Research Environment of adult eye cancers builds on our unique Ocular Oncology Biobank, which has existed now for 14 years. It is a precious resource that was developed closely with the NHS Specialist Eye Cancer Centre at St Paul’s Eye Clinic, at the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group. It is unique in the UK (if not globally) and has allowed our research group to undertake a wide range of high impact studies and collaborations, over the last 19 years. The new development of our Biobank is that we are digitising all clinical, ocular, and radiological images from consented patients, linking them up with the digitised histological slides, tumour genetic results, and clinical outcome data. This will enable greater data mining, including the application of Artificial Intelligence to the images, with the ultimate aim of improving patient diagnostics and treatments. We are doing this with the help of AIMES/ARO Technology and Roche Diagnostics."

LOORG was delighted to welcome the Lord Mayor, Richard Kemp and Lady Mayoress, Erica Kemp to the Event on Wednesday. The Lord Mayor opened proceedings with a speech followed by presentations from the NHS, University, Roche Diagnositics and Ocular Melanoma UK.

news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/03/13/university-launches-digital-bioresource-to-tackle-rare-eye-cancers/
 
The Event was sponsored by Roche Diagnostics, The Pathological Society, ARO Tech, Ocular Melanoma UK, North West Cancer Research and The Royal College of Pathologists.

Iryna, originally from Belarus is an MD PhD Senior researcher, Fellow ocular oncologist at the N.N. Alexandrov Belarus National Cancer Center. She recently started a Masters programme at the University of Oxford and visited LOORG in January to learn more about group's research and biobank.