Dimitra Skondra, an internationally renowned vitreoretinal surgeon and physician scientist, is an Associate Professor Ophthalmology & Visual Science and the Director of J. Terry Ernest Ocular Imaging Center. She is also the founder and leader of UChicago Retinal Microbiome and UChicago Retina Big Data/Bioinformatics team. She completed her ophthalmology residency at Weill Cornell Medical College/New York Presbyterian Hospital and her PhD/postdoctoral fellowship and vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Her team focuses on the role of gut microbiome in retinal disorders in particular AMD and ROP. She is considered one of the international leaders and pioneers in this newly emerged field of retinal research using specialized gnotobiotic animal models she has developed and cutting-edge multi-omics approach to delineate the gut-retina axis interactions. Her team, using Big-Data and computational bioinformatics approach has found that metformin, a common anti-diabetic medication, is protective for AMD and could represent a new therapeutic strategy for AMD. She is an elected member of the prestigious Macula Society, Retina Society and Club Jules Gonin that include selected leaders of the retinal field internationally. She has received numerous awards including ARVO Early Career Clinician Scientist, Retina Society Margherio Award, Club Jules Gonin Retina Research Foundation award, ISPB AMD award , UChicago Innovation award and has given multiple invited lectures nationally and internationally. She is an invited founding member of the Microbiome Medicine Program, on editorial board of IOVS and has been elected in retinal section of ARVO Program Committee and Retina Society’s Socioeconomic Committee.