The Gonin Medal has been instituted in 1937 and is the oldest but also the most prestigious medal in ophthalmology. It is placed every year at the disposition of the Board of the International Council of Ophthalmology by the University of Lausanne and the Swiss Ophthalmological Society. 

Honoree: Alan Charles Bird (London/UK)

Laudatio: Bruce E. Spivey (ICO President)

Alan Bird started his ophthalmology residency at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London 1962. His first interest was neuro-ophthalmology and he worked for one year as Senior House Officer at Guy’s/Maudsley Neurosurgical Unit. In 1965 he joined the staff of Moorfields Eye Hospital. In 1968-1969 he completed a clinical fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami. He became a close friend of Donald Gass who had a major influence on him. In August 1969 Alan returned to Moorfields Eye Hospital where he became an undisputed world leader in medical retina. In 1976 he became Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and is since October 2006 Emeritus Professor. He is still a Honorary Consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Dr. Bird’s main interests are age-related macular degeneration and retinal dystrophies. Together with John Marshall and Daniel Pauleikhoff he studied aging changes in Bruch’s membrane. With A. Hoskins he was the first to recognize tears of the retinal pigment epithelium. His group described a number of genotypephenotype correlations and identified new gene mutations in various retinal dystrophies. With Fitzke and Holz he introduced fundus auto-fluorescence as a diagnostic tool in retinal diseases. Professor Bird also worked on Sickle Cell disease in Jamaica and on Onchocercosis in Africa.

His scientific production is amazing with over 400 papers in peer-reviewed journals and over 80 contributions in books. He sits on the Editorial Board of Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science and of a number of other journals. He is a foreign advisor to INSERM, member of the scientific committee on AMD of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and an Ad Hoc member of the Board of Scientific Counsellors of the NEI in Bethesda.

Alan Bird has delivered more than 60 named lectures, including the Duke-Elder Lecture, the Doyne Lecture, the Jackson Memorial Lecture, the Donders Lecture, the Bowman Lecture, the Jules François Lecture to name only some of the most prestigious ones. He is a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, of the Royal College of Ophthalmology, of the American College of Surgeons, of the South African College of Ophthalmologists. He was the 2008 Laureate of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and obtained the 2003 ICO Golden Apple Award for teaching.

He is a gifted speaker and a superb teacher who trained numerous young ophthalmologists from all over the world. The list of speakers at his career celebration in London in 2005 reads as a Who’s Who in world ophthalmology.