Symposium (DE/EN)

Symposium: Simply transparent? The Vitreous in Focus

Recordings from the 2025 German Ophthalmological Society Congress

The symposium highlights current scientific and clinical aspects of the vitreous: from new treatment options for vitreous opacities aimed at improving quality of life, to the impact on the efficacy of intravitreal medication, modern replacement techniques, and the latest scientific insights into the role of hyalocytes. The goal is to deepen the understanding of the vitreous, provide insight into current research and preclinical work, and offer new impulses for diagnostics and therapy in direct patient care.

Here you will first find a 3-minute highlight video. If you scroll further down, the table of contents will lead you to the recordings of the individual speakers’ presentations.

3-minute highlight video (DE audio / EN subtitles*)

*If subtitles do not appear automatically, please enable them using the subtitles icon left of the settings (gear) icon in the bottom-right corner of the video player.

Dietary interventions to improve the vision-related quality of life of patients suffering from vitreous floaters

Prof. John Nolan

Prof. John Nolan is the founder of the Nutrition Research Centre Ireland (NRCI), a multidisciplinary team focused on investigating the impact of nutrition and lifestyle on health and well-being. He is widely recognized for his innovative clinical work and his commitment to improving quality of life through scientifically validated solutions.For more than 18 years, Prof. Nolan’s research has concentrated on the role of nutrition in visual and cognitive health, with applications ranging from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) to Alzheimer’s prevention. By identifying key nutrients that support brain and eye function, he and the NRCI team have also made important contributions to research on vitreous floaters (myodesopsia). Prof. Nolan and his team initiated the FLIES study — the first placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial evaluating a targeted micronutrient formulation for the treatment of vitreous floaters. Through this pioneering work, Prof. Nolan and the NRCI played a leading role in the development of VitroCap®N, an innovative, patented nutritional supplement designed to improve visual performance.

“Nutrition is the starting point of maintenance […]. If we can reduce the oxidative stress in […] the vitreous, we are already well on our way to preventing what happens later in degenerative processes […]. We know which nutrients are involved. You now have the opportunity as clinicians to be proactive with a nutritional intervention that is evidence-based and has been tested for more than ten years.”

Prof. John Nolan

Therapy for eye floaters

Prof. Hans Hoerauf

Prof. Hans Hoerauf is Director of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Medical Center Göttingen and a leading expert in retinal and vitreous diseases. His clinical focus includes cataract surgery, macular surgery, and intravitreal injections for age-related macular degeneration as well as diabetic macular edema.He is deeply committed to research, particularly on the interface between the retina and the vitreous, and on innovative imaging techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of retinal diseases.In addition, he is a board member of the Professional Association of German Ophthalmologists and served as President of the German Ophthalmological Society (DOG) in 2019/20.

“Not everyone has an Optos device, but in your OCTs you can now also see […] [the primary vitreous opacities] very clearly. […] Their localization determines whether a vitrectomy or vitreolysis is appropriate, and in both cases you can of course bridge the waiting time for treatment now — for example with VitroCap®N.”

Prof. Hans Hoerauf

The influence of the vitreous on intravitreal pharmacotherapy

Dr. Maximilian Hammer

Dr. Hammer is a resident in ophthalmology and a graduate of the MD/PhD program at the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University.He completed his doctorate with distinction (summa cum laude) in neurophysiology and undertook several research stays at renowned institutions such as Harvard Medical School and the University of Oxford.Already during his medical studies, Dr. Hammer secured independent third-party funding in the six-figure range to establish the young research group “Posterior Segment Apple” at the David J. Apple Laboratory. He was supported in this by his mentors Prof. Auffarth and Prof. Uhl (IPMB, Heidelberg University).His research focuses on biomaterials for vitreoretinal surgery and their impact on patients’ visual function.For his innovative, fundamental scientific work, he has received multiple awards — most recently the DOG2025 Retina Research Grant.

“Protein- and peptide-based drugs used in anti-VEGF therapies have a shorter duration of action when the eye has been vitrectomized. And overall, the treatment is less effective. […] What can be observed is that the vitreous, in some way, is also able to store medications. […] In a vitrectomized eye, the active substance reaches the retina completely within a very short time, and in doing so we have not only removed the diffusion barrier, but also created a completely different way in which the drug reaches the eye.”

Dr. Maximilian Hammer

Vitreous replacement: rationale and strategies

Prof. André Schulz

Prof. André Schulz is Professor of Biomaterials in Ophthalmology at the University Medical Center Rostock. After studying chemistry in Rostock, he earned his doctorate at Saarland University in molecular and cellular biotechnology within a biomedical field and worked scientifically at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Technology in Sulzbach. In the following years, he headed a research group for tissue engineering as well as a translational research laboratory at the Department of Ophthalmology of the Knappschaftsklinikum Saar. Prof. Schulz’s scientific focus is the replacement of ocular tissue, with a particular emphasis on hydrogel-based therapeutic approaches. In recent years, he and

“What you do every day is replace the vitreous […] which is a hydrogel […] with gases or silicone oil. […] When we remove the vitreous, we also take away its functions — its ability to provide mechanical support, to act as a shock absorber, and the associated tasks of the hyalocytes. I am firmly convinced that we need an authentic vitreous replacement. We need a hydrogel.”

Prof. André Schulz

Hyalocytes – the cells of the vitreous

Dr. Stefaniya Boneva

Dr. Stefaniya Boneva is an ophthalmologist at the University Eye Hospital Freiburg. She also leads the research group “Immunology of the Vitreoretinal Interface”.Her research focuses on the role of hyalocytes at the vitreoretinal interface and their influence on conditions such as proliferative vitreoretinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. Using modern methods such as single-cell analyses, RNA sequencing, and fluorescence imaging, she investigates the dual role of these cells in both the healthy and the diseased eye. The aim of this research is to better understand the equilibrium of these cells and to develop new therapeutic approaches for more effective treatment of ocular diseases.Dr. Stefaniya Boneva collaborates internationally with leading experts and institutions in ophthalmology and retinal research. Her collaborators include Prof. J. Sebag of the Doheny Eye Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, as well as Toco Y. P. Chui and Prof. Richard B. Rosen of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, New York, USA.For her important research on hyalocytes, Dr. Boneva has received multiple awards — including the Senator Hermann Wacker Prize (2022) and the Helmholtz Research Prize of the DOG (2025).

“Although the treatment of diabetic retinopathy with the administration of anti-VEGF antibodies has been revolutionary, it is not sufficient for many patients. This indicates that there are other molecular pathways that play an important role in this context. We suspect that hyalocytes represent such a previously unknown factor. […] We were able to isolate hyalocytes from the vitreous of patients with vitreous hemorrhage or tractional retinal detachment in diabetic retinopathy and analyze their transcription profile. The analysis of more than 43,000 transcripts sho

Dr. Stefaniya Boneva

„Mit unserem Mikronährstoffkomplex VitroCap®N haben wir in diesem Jahr – nach zehn Jahren Forschung und fünf Jahren Arbeit mit den Patentinstitutionen in Europa – endlich das Patent erlangt und können damit zeigen, dass unser Produkt eine echte Innovation zur Unterstützung bei Glaskörpertrübungen ist. Aber über den Glaskörper gibt es natürlich sehr, sehr viel mehr zu sagen als zu den Themen Mikronährstoffe und Floater. [...] Heute haben wir Referenten aus Freiburg, aus Rostock, aus Dublin, aus Heidelberg und aus Göttingen – und ich denke, wir werden hier [weitere spannende] Innovationen vorgestellt bekommen"

Robert Kuchling

Symposium: Simply transparent? The Vitreous in Focus

Recordings from the 2025 German Ophthalmological Society Congress

3-minute highlight video (DE audio / EN subtitles*)

Recordings of the individual presentations

Dietary interventions to improve the vision-related quality of life of patients suffering from vitreous floaters

Prof. John Nolan

Therapy for eye floaters

Prof. Hans Hoerauf

The influence of the vitreous on intravitreal pharmacotherapy

Dr. Maximilian Hammer

Vitreous replacement: rationale and strategies

Prof. André Schulz

Prof. André Schulz

Hyalocytes – the cells of the vitreous

Dr. Stefaniya Boneva

Dr. Stefaniya Boneva