Michiko Mandai, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist and ophthalmologist based at Kobe City Eye Hospital, where she directs the Research Center.Alongside her outpatient clinics focused on macular diseases, she was one of the leading members of the world's first clinical application of patient-derived iPSC-RPE cells for age-related macular degeneration in 2014. Currently, her central focus is on retinal organoid （lab-grown retinal tissue） transplantation as a source of photoreceptor cells for patients with inherited retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, having driven the field from preclinical validation through to the world's first clinical trial in this area. She continues to pursue further improvements in visual recovery, including through genome-edited retinal organoids designed to integrate more effectively into the patient's retina.