Lions Gift of Sight Today Newsletter:
A publication for our friends and partners
Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Neurosciences
University of Minnesota
Summer 2020
© Copyright 2020 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
Lions Gift of Sight TODAY is published twice a year by the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Lions Gift of Sight
1000 Westgate Drive - Ste 260
Saint Paul, MN 55114
For more information, visit LionsGiftofSight.UMN.edu or call 1-866-887-4448
Table of Contents
Like you, we persevere: A message from Executive Director Sean Poppoff
When we first started preparing this newsletter, I drafted a story about the road that led me to join Lions Gift of Sight as executive director. I shared that story because, although this was not where I expected to be, it is the place I want to be more than any other, and I am incredibly proud to be associated with this eye bank.
Now, however, focus has dramatically shifted in our world. COVID-19 is among us, and our donation partners are on the front line: hospitals, medical examiners, funeral directors, and aging services facilities, amongst others. The personnel that keep these vital services running are experiencing challenges and stress unlike anything I have seen in my lifetime. My admiration for these COVID-19 warriors is immense.
Our operations, like yours, have been interrupted. For two months, our efforts were focused on emergency needs and fighting COVID-19. Period. Because many surgeries had been deferred, the demand for eye tissue decreased, and we adjusted accordingly. We preserved supplies and personal protective equipment (masks, gowns, etc.) and temporarily suspended eye tissue recovery for research except when directly related to COVID-19 studies. Like you, we persevered. And I would like to say I have never been more proud of my staff, the Medical School, and the University that we are a part of.
Lions Gift of Sight has now returned to somewhat normal operations with staff, who are able, telecommuting. We are meeting the transplant needs of our corneal surgeons and their patients, and we have resumed the research operations so vital to our mission.
Healthcare facilities, medical examiners, and funeral homes are collaborative partners in eye donation. We especially appreciate the opportunity to recover on COVID-19 positive donors to advance the research we are conducting. Our studies of this virus and how it affects the cornea is vital to the safety of future corneal transplant recipients and could have great implications for eye donation. We are gratified to make any contributions we can to the knowledge and defeat of this pernicious disease.
Lions Gift of Sight is blessed to have such talented and dedicated partners as you helping to save and improve people’s lives. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Research and Innovation – LGS Watchwords
In 2019, Lions Gift of Sight established a dedicated Research and Development department, formalizing the support the organization has always given to efforts that improve lives through research and innovation. Dr. Ching Yuan, a scientist well published in the field of corneal wound healing and limbal stem cell research, heads this department. Dr. Yuan shared some highlights of what he, his dynamic staff, and eye bank medical director, Joshua Hou, M.D., have recently achieved.
Hansen Hinges
A technique developed in-house by Dr. Hou and Mark Hansen, M.D. Tissue can now be prepared with “Hansen Hinges,” a pair of small relaxing incisions added to a Descemet’s Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK) graft. These incisions encourage the graft to form a triple scroll shape with a wide unrolled triangular central area. Studies have shown that the triple scroll makes the unscrolling of DMEK tissue (widely considered the most difficult part of DMEK surgery) easier for surgeons and can thus reduce time that patients and surgeons spend in the operating room.
MNSert®
MNSert® is a method to load a peeled, dye-stained DMEK cornea into an inserter, making it ready for the surgeon to use “out of the box.” MNSert®tissue saves an average of 10-15 minutes of graft-preparation time in the operating room, ensures healthy graft tissue after placement in the inserter, and decreases the chance of final graft separation.
COVID-19 Study
Lions Gift of Sight is conducting an in situ infection study to test whether SARS-CoV-2 can infect ocular cells and transmit COVID-19 via donor tissues. The results of this study will have ramifications for eye banking for years to come.
At Lions Gift of Sight, we believe that research will benefit future generations of eye patients. Thank you for being a part of that future.
Lions: Helping the Blind
Many eye clinics and eye banks contain the Lions name or have a Lions affiliation. This support of vision can be traced to the remarkable Helen Keller.
Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880, Helen Keller contracted a fever at 19 months of age that left her both blind and deaf. She lived in darkness and silence until a miraculous teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through 7-year old Helen’s isolation to teach her sign language, Braille, and speech.
All her life Helen was a tireless advocate for people with disabilities. In 1925, she attended the Lions Clubs International Convention and gave a short speech asking the very young service organization to help the blind. This speech so moved the Lions that they have worked to assist the visually-impaired and to eradicate preventable blindness ever since.
Lions Gift of Sight is proud to be a part of this tradition and thanks our Minnesota Lions and the Minnesota Lions Vision Foundation for their unstinting support.
A Note to our Surgeons
We know the stay-at-home orders heavily impacted surgery centers, and we are so grateful for your timely notifications of canceled or rescheduled surgeries. Although under reduced operations in April and May, Lions Gift of Sight was able to meet the needs of those surgery centers that called upon us, and for this we thank our cornea donors and our essential staff.
Tissue Request Portal
If you are not familiar with our tissue request portal, it can be a huge time saver for you and your support staff. The portal allows you to: schedule, reschedule, or cancel tissue requests; monitor the status of your requests; and accept tissue offers. Please contact me for more information or to schedule an orientation session for your team.
Did you know that we can also offer tissue by text, and that you can then review and accept the offer in the portal or by email?
If you have changes to your preferences, please just let me know.
Best,
Natalie Buckman, Surgeon Liaison
612-624-0178
[email protected]
Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office: Best Practices Boost Eye Donation
Lions Gift of Sight is privileged to work with many highly-regarded institutions and individuals to meet our mission to restore sight. One such organization that consistently and tirelessly raises the bar in the practice of donation referral is the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office (HCME) has a long history of fostering a culture of donation. Roberta Geiselhart, retired supervisor of investigations, was instrumental in establishing a foundation to provide families with donation opportunities, and, in fact, believed it was a medical examiner’s responsibility to the communities being served. When morgue supervisor Jackie Ulven, F-ABMDI, began as lead investigator, she fully owned this ideology and continued to lead the way in establishing best practices for, and removing barriers to, donation.
Eye donation is extremely time-sensitive, and HCME’s strategic autopsy scheduling assured that pending eye cases moved forward in a timely manner. Revision of the content of a hospice pre-registration form opened the door of donation to more patients, regardless of where their deaths occurred. Most recently, implementation of an online hospice registration portal assures all hospice deaths are referred for donation.
These practices have resulted in an amazing increase in eye donors referred by HCME. In 2016, HCME referrals resulted in 175 eye donors to Lions Gift of Sight. With the above-mentioned changes, HCME referrals climbed to 3,490 in 2019, yielding 872 donors, with 412 corneas going for transplant and 1,243 eyes or corneas dedicated to research and medical education. This is an astounding increase in just three years!
Thank you to HCME for pioneering best practices in Minnesota. Your actions ensure that more families are given the opportunity to find hope and healing through donation.
Lions Gift of Sight Turns 60
Lions Gift of Sight is celebrating sixty years of service in 2020! It was sixty years ago that the University of Minnesota and the Lions combined their aspirations and resources to create a state eye bank: Minnesota Lions Eye Bank. This labor of love superbly exemplified the values of both organizations.
Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, re-dubbed Lions Gift of Sight in 2018, has become one of the most respected and innovative eye banks in the world. We have now provided more than 34,000 corneas for transplant and yield an economic benefit to the state of Minnesota of $117 million every year. Happy birthday, Lions Gift of Sight!
Eye Bank Association of America
Founded in 1961, the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) is an invaluable resource that sets medical standards for eye bank accreditation, performs onsite inspections of eye banks, and provides training and certification of eye bank technicians.
The EBAA annual meetings include scientific sessions showcasing research and advances in corneal transplantation, and this year Medical Director, Joshua Hou, M.D., Research Fellow Peter Bedard, and Research Scientist Sung Lee all presented papers at the scientific symposium.
Congratulations to Peter, who received the Best Paper of Session Award for his presentation on Descemet Membrane vs. Amniotic Membrane for Limbal Stem Cell Culture. Says Peter, “The talk was a summary of two years of work from our whole research team [Dr. Joshua Hou, Dr. Ching Yuan, and Sung Lee, in addition to Peter], and it’s an honor I share with this highly talented research group.”
Lions Gift of Sight Eye Bank Association of America Committee Appointments
Natalie Buckman
Statistical Report Committee
Policy and Position Research Subcommittee
Patty Stockdale
Donor, Partner & Community Relations Committee
Sean Poppoff
Finance Committee
Kody Westrick
Continuing Education Committee
Ching Yuan, Ph.D.
Research Committee
Technical Procedures Manual Subcommittee
Eye Banking Statistics
Lions Gift of Sight 2019 Statistics
Eye Donor Referrals
13,242
Eye or Cornea Donors
2,250
Corneas Provided for Transplant
1,496
Eyes or Corneas Provided for Research / Education
2,478
Lifetime economic benefit from corneas provided for transplant in 2019
$175M
U.S. Eye Bank 2019 Statistics
Eye or Cornea Donors
68,759
Eyes or Corneas Provided for Research / Education
23,230
Corneas Provided for Transplant
85,601
Success Rate for Corneal Transplants
Greater than 95%
Source and additional details at RestoreSight.org
Employee Spotlight
Patrick, Recovery Manager
Every time I go to work, I have the privilege of carefully preparing and handling the most precious gifts imaginable: donated human eyes. I often find myself looking at the tiny, clear cornea, stunned by the complexity of the human body. While corneas are only half a millimeter thick and about 12 millimeters in diameter, these small flexible windows profoundly change lives!
Eye donation has impacted my own life both professionally and personally. I have worked at Lions Gift of Sight for 11 years. I have recovered eye tissue for transplant and research from more than 2,000 donors. I now have the privilege of leading the more than 30 persons who make up our recovery operation. That is the professional connection. Here is the personal: my grandfather has had two corneal transplants. Thanks to his cornea donors, he sees the smiling faces of his wife, children, and grandchildren.
My grandfather often thanks me for what I do at the eye bank, but I’m not the one who deserves thanks. Transplants are only possible because of the selfless decisions of donors and their families. So, when I approach a donor, I am always reminded that it is this person’s generosity that has brought me here and that this person will change the life of a stranger. When I gently close the eyes for the last time, I believe that the donor would be happy to know that someone else’s life will be better because of the gift of sight.
Donor Spotlight
Cisco
Lions Gift of Sight was privileged to receive eye tissue from more than 2,000 donors in 2019. One of those generous individuals was Cisco. His wife, Julie, graciously allowed us to share this snapshot of his life:
"Cisco’s two passions in life were music and animals. He was a member of the Saint Paul Drum & Bugle Corp as a young boy and enjoyed playing drums and singing. He sang to me the night I met him and on our wedding day. Cisco loved soul, funk, Motown, blues, and big band music. Our kids were a couple of stray black cats and dogs — lots of dogs! He loved all animals and always rescued strays and cared for abandoned creatures. Cisco was a Vietnam Veteran and incredibly proud to have served his country."
Whether for transplant or research, donation has a profound effect on others. Thank you to all of our 2019 donors and their family members who supported donation.
LGS Recognizes Eye Donation Champions
Lions Gift of Sight’s mission to restore sight through eye donation is one that depends on many partners. We are fortunate to have supportive healthcare personnel, medical examiners, funeral directors, surgeons, scientists, and transportation partners all who understand the value and time-sensitive nature of eye donation. It is our privilege to honor the following individuals and organizations whose contributions to restoring sight in 2019 merit distinguished recognition.
- Children's Minnesota
- Cremation Society of Minnesota
- Cremation Society of Minnesota - Duluth
- Crescent Tide Cremation Services
- Deborah Ferrington, Ph.D.
- Fairview Range Medical Center
- Gearty-Delmore Funeral Chapels
- Groome Transportation Duluth
- Groome Transportation Rochester
- Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Duluth - Downtown
- Mark Hansen, M.D.
- Mayo Clinic Emergency Department
- Mayo Clinic Health System Cannon Falls
- Mayo Clinic Health System Lake City
- Mayo Clinic Health System Red Wing
- Mayo Clinic Office of Decedent Affairs
- Metro First Call
- Minneapolis VA Medical Center
- Olmsted Medical Center
- Quicksilver Express Courier
- Roseville Memorial Chapel O’Halloran & Murphy
- Sunrise Funeral Home
- University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program
- Washburn - McReavy
- Willwerscheid Funeral Home& Cremation Service
About Lions Gift of Sight
Lions Gift of Sight (LGS) is a community-based non-profit eye bank. Founded in 1960, it is the oldest donation organization in Minnesota. LGS serves the needs of donors and recipients in Minnesota, western Wisconsin, and North Dakota, as well as Galveston, Texas, 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year. LGS distributes corneas for transplant and eyes and corneas for research and medical education.
With a stringent eye bank quality assurance program that audits all aspects of operations, LGS upholds the highest tissue quality standards. LGS is accredited by the Eye Bank Association of America, inspected by the Food and Drug Administration, follows OSHA and University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research guidelines. LGS is a proud part of the Minnesota Lions Vision Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.