Page 2 - LGS Today Fall-Winter 2022

Lions Gift of Sight
TODAY
FALL-WINTER 2022
Funeral Home Partnerships. . . . . 3 Lions International. . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Community Events . . . . . . . . . . . 5 EBAA...................... 6 Spotlight on Distribution . . . . . . . 7 Donor Spotlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
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Lions Gift of Sight TODAY is published twice a year by the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Lions Gift of Sight
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Neurosciences
1000 Westgate Drive - Ste 260 Saint Paul, MN 55114
For more information, visit
LIONSGIFTOFSIGHT.UMN.EDU 612-625-5159
2 Lions Gift of Sight
Better Together
Sean Poppoff, Executive Director
I have been thinking a lot about partnerships lately. Industrialist Henry Ford, sports legend Michael Jordan, naturalist Charles Darwin, humanitarian Mother Teresa—successful people who have made lasting impressions on our world—all attest to the
benefits of working together. And we need look no further than our own Helen Keller, who said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” for guidance.
Throughout our existence, Lions Gift of Sight has depended on strong working partnerships between the Lions and the University of Minnesota. But in the last four years, accelerating in the last four months, our eye bank has stepped up our efforts still further to make an impact through collaborations. I want to highlight a few in this issue of Lions Gift of Sight Today.
Donation Partners
What first comes to mind is our work to strengthen our relationship with our donation partner LifeSource. Our two entities have struggled to communicate over the last four years. We have each promoted our own worthy missions more than the collective mission of eye, organ, and tissue donation. These practices are at an end, and Lions Gift of Sight and LifeSource are now earnestly working in tandem. We have so much good we can accomplish for the populations we“serve, and we thank LifeSource for meeting us more than halfway.
LifeSource is proud to partner with Lions Gift of Sight on the shared mission of dona- tion. Clear strides have been made during 2022 to deepen and solidify our relat”ion-
ship, which is of mutual benefit to our respective missions and to the community.
Peter Farstad, Interim C
Lions Eye Bank of Wisconsin
Our fantastic donation partner to the east, Lions Eye Bank of Wisconsin, reached out to us for help with lab operations training. Lions Gift of Sight trainer, Lori Pederson, was happy to help and now spends around 30 hours a week at the eye bank’s Madison office.
Paired Peripheral Incisions
Lions Gift of Sight Medical Director, Dr. Joshua Hou, in partnership with local surgeon Dr. Mark Hansen, has developed a tissue preparation method that makes corneal grafting easier for surgeons: paired peripheral incisions. LGS approached Moria Ophthalmic Instruments to manufacture a punch that would automate the addition of these incisions to corneal grafts, bringing the technique to all corneal surgeons. Together we created a method that is better for surgeons and better for patients!
Cell Counting Software
LGS is partnering with the imaging software company ADCIS in Saint-Contest, France,
to produce a tool that automatically measures the overall cell health of a donor cornea. The current evaluation of donor corneas is an antiquated process limited by sampling error and evaluator subjectivity. This new software tool provides accurate and unbiased information about the quantity of endothelial cells that remain healthy at the end of eye bank processing, allowing eye surgeons to better assess which corneas will be most beneficial to their patients.
I want to thank every one of our partners for making us a better eye bank!
EO