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Makoto Aihara

After my excellent stay at San Diego from 2000 to 2003 as a research scientist of UCSD, I remember that my big boss, Distinguished Professor Robert N. Weinreb, and his worldwide friends just began to start the planning of the World Glaucoma Congress with the World Glaucoma Association. Fortunately, I have had the chance to attend the WGC from the first meeting held at Vienna in 2005. Since then, I had the role of one of the members of the steering committee of the WGA and started seeing the development of the WGC and their contribution to the global glaucoma specialists and patients. I was thereafter privileged to be elected as member of the Board of Governors of the WGA. I am always looking forward to seeing my friends and young specialists at the congress and feel privileged to have been the local president of the 9^th WGC 2021, initially planned to be held at Kyoto. However, I was sad that 9th WGC was converted to an e-congress because of COVID-19. I hope in the future the WGC will be held at Kyoto with personal attendance.

After returning from UCSD, I started again to work at the University of Tokyo as a clinician scientist. Currently, I am a Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and the Head of Glaucoma service at the University of Tokyo, Japan. From 2020, I had the privilege of being the president of Japan Glaucoma Society in succession to the activities of the Professor Emeritus Sai Mishima, Yoshi Kitazawa, Makoto Araie, and Teddy Yamamoto.

Since I have studied the basic science of neuro-biochemistry in my post-graduate school, I applied it to the glaucoma research work. My research interests are the regulation of intraocular pressure, ocular pharmacology, lipid mediators in glaucoma, including medical and surgical treatment. As is well known, 5% of people over the age of 40 in Japan suffer from glaucoma. NTG is the most common of glaucoma subtypes and glaucoma is the causes of blindness one third of the cases. We, the Japan Glaucoma Society, face the challenge to reduce the number of cases of blindness as much as we can. Even though NTG patients statistically indicate normal pressure, IOP-lowering and stabilization are effective to suppress the progression, and I am concerned the vulnerability of our optic disc and myopic structural changes are the main causes of NTG.

The WGA encourage us to promote the World Glaucoma Week. Our society started the activity of ‘light-up in Green’ to promote the awareness of glaucoma during the WGW. Amazingly, over 700 facilities through the country joined this activity and contribute to inform the people and society about the importance of glaucoma. We really appreciate the leadership of the WGA and patient education program in the WGC.

The WGA must develop more activities across the world and contribute to the prevention of glaucoma. I am proud to be a member of the WGA and really pleased with attending the biennial meeting, the WGC, with the prospect of feeling the members’ passion for glaucoma and friendship.