Tag Archive: news

Thanks to four cornea donors and their families, Teresa sees and lives life in bright, vivid color. Teresa Rambaud was only 14 when she was diagnosed with Keratoconus – a progressive eye disease that affects the cornea. In spite of this, at the age of 17, Teresa was able to visit Silverton, Oregon as an exchange student from Mexico. By the time Teresa was 20, she had become totally blind. Life was dark and difficult at times, and she would often fall and hurt herself. Teresa was incredibly grateful for the care and support of the teachers and classmates who got her through school – assisting with studying and even giving her tests orally. But Teresa’s family made the greatest sacrifices, assisting her each day and routinely loading their large family into the car for 12-hour round trips to El Paso, Texas, to see eye specialists. Teresa got through it by focusing on the good moments of her life. She says, “Even when I was blind, I have always been able to see my blessings.”  At the ages of 22 and 24, Teresa received her first two cornea transplants from donors in El Paso, Texas. For the first time in…Read more »

PORTLAND, OR, August 7, 2018 – VisionGift (VG), one of the nation’s leading eye banks, is excited to announce that that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted it a patent for claims for its invention of Patient Ready DMEK™.  The patent is titled, Corneal Tissue Sample Assemblies and Related Methods of Use (US 10,041,865 B2),  and covers VG’s innovative assembly for the handling, transporting, viewing, evaluating, and/or shipping of corneal tissue.  The patent is the culmination of years of work to create an innovative way to provide endothelial tissue in a manner that can meet the strict evaluation and quality standards that are a cornerstone to VG’s success.  “It is truly humbling to work with so many bright and dedicated people who worked hard to bring this from concept to reality. This achievement represents a tremendous organizational investment. The field of eye banking is evolving – innovation now requires a new sense of forethought and intentionality to ensure that good ideas can be translated into advances in patient care.” –  Said Chris Stoeger, CEO of VisionGift.  Dr. Khoa Tran, VG’s Research and Development Scientist, is the primary inventor of the assembly, which he developed after spending time working with surgeons, eye…Read more »

On November 7, 2017 the world lost a true pioneer in the world of eye banking. Barbara started her career at OHSU’s Casey Eye Institute where she ran the Oregon Eye Bank from 1987 to 1998 at which time she took over Lions Eye Bank of Oregon (now VisionGift). She co-Directed the two organizations until merging the programs in 2000. That in and of itself would be accomplishment enough for most of us, but not for Barbara. Barbara spent the next 16 years leading the eye bank through a continuous growth trajectory that has allowed us to contribute to sight saving surgeries, research and education at a level unfathomable in 1998. It was her commitment to sharing our knowledge that provoked the strongest voices of sorrow from around the eye banking community. Barbara led the EBAA as Chairman in 2000-2002 and was recognized in 2004 with the Heise Award, the highest honor bestowed upon an eye banker for her tremendous contributions to the field. Barbara went on to lead VG for more than 10 years after winning that award and has mentored many staff to follow her example of giving back to the community. It is through this mentorship and…Read more »

It is with great pleasure that we announce our first tissues processed at VisionGift East (Boston, MA). Allison Andersen prepped 2 DMEK tissues for surgery with Stephen Wehrer assisting. This is a significant accomplishment and reflects hours of hard work by both Stephen and Allison in getting to this point. This feat could also not have been possible without the many hours of work by our IT, RAD, and Distribution departments. Congratulations are due all around!

When we think about organ donation, we often think about the heart, kidney or liver, but eye tissue from deceased organ donors also can be gifted to patients in need of sight-saving surgeries. Now surgeons at OHSU Casey Eye Institute are using a new technique called halo® graft, a patch made of donated corneal tissue, to perform tube shunt surgeries that prevent vision loss in glaucoma patients. Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Shandiz Tehrani, M.D., Ph.D., an ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist at Casey Eye Institute, has performed more than 100 surgeries using the halo® graft, which was developed by researchers at VisionGift, Oregon’s eye bank. While topical medication and lasers are used in mild to moderate cases of glaucoma, patients with severe glaucoma often need surgery to prevent blindness.

Barbara Crow, Chief Executive Officer of VisionGift (VG), has announced her retirement; her final day will be December 31, 2016.  Ms. Crow has served as Executive Director/CEO of VG, formerly Lions Eye Bank of Oregon, since 1998.  She came to the organization from Oregon Health & Sciences University where she served as Executive Director of the Oregon Eye Bank at OHSU from 1987, and is credited, along with Dr. Joseph Robertson and Lion George DeHart, with merging the two eye banks in 2000.  Ms. Crow’s tenure saw the eye bank through its growth years as a program of the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation, to its present day status as a world renown eye bank dedicated to its mission of honoring its donors and their gifts of sight in order to eradicate preventable blindness through transplantation, vital eye research, education and the provision of medical products used to treat specific conditions in the eye.  As she puts it, “I came to a program that had 7 employees and a 24 member Board of dedicated Lions, many of whom stayed with the eye bank to provide guidance and support through the years.  FDA regulations soon pushed the eye bank into…Read more »

VisionGift is really proud of the relationships we develop with talented surgeons from across the nation – and around the world – when they visit us to observe techniques and protocols of the newest corneal surgeries; others have spent time in fellowships with some of our partners in care, like the Devers Eye Clinic, and gone on to their own practices elsewhere.  In both cases many have maintained their affinity for VisionGift prepared tissue.  This trend took another step forward when our newest Medical Director, Dr. Chris Sáles, who now practices in NY, performed two DMEK surgeries in early September 2016 utilizing VisionGift prepared DMEK tissue. Dr. Sáles reported that the procedures went perfectly and he was pleased with the blue vital dye staining VG utilizes in our pre-cuts because it allows the surgeon to see the tissue better during the surgery, but it also highlights any cell damage that can occur during tissue recovery and processing – noting that both tissues had “nothing to see but pristine endothelial cells.

As we all know, there are two versions of endothelial keratoplasty therapy; DSAEK which has been performed for more than 10 years and the newer DMEK, which is only a couple of years old.  Of note, each of these therapies was developed, in large part, through extensive exploration and refinement by VisionGift laboratory staff – with DMEK largely being pioneered in our lab by our technician Phil Dye.  That Phil just this month passed the 1,000 DMEK graft preparation threshold is a truly remarkable achievement.  Coupled with the many hundreds of peels Phil performed during validation and clinical trials for the procedure, Phil’s epic contribution to DMEK science means he has very likely performed more of these peels than any other person on the planet. As noted by Joshua Galloway, Processing Manager for VisionGift, “Phil Dye has recently processed his 1000th DMEK graft for transplant and we are aware of only 1 other person the world, Dr. Mark Gorovoy, who can make the same claim. This is a remarkable achievement in itself, but to prepare that many with as few failures as Phil has had is even more astounding. In his over 1000 attempts Phil has been 98.5% successful in preparing…Read more »