What is Global Sight Network?

A humanitarian effort by a network of eye banks, physicians, vision scientists and philanthropic organizations joined for the common cause of preserving sight worldwide.

 

Global Sight Network, a service managed by the Alabama Eye Bank, preserves donated corneas sent from partner eye banks throughout the United States, and distributes them to qualified facilities around the world. In this way, the partner eye banks of the Global Sight Network can honor the wishes of donors and their families to restore sight to blind and visually impaired patients everywhere.

 

Corneas are transferred into long-term storage medium (glycerol) that allows them to be stored for many years before they are transplanted. Patient populations who were previously denied help because of time sensitive storage media or a system that was unable to maximize distribution now have new opportunities for improved sight. Glycerol-preserved corneas are also usable in procedures for glaucoma drainage device coverage, anterior lamellar keratoplasty, and keratoprosthesis.

 

History of GSN

Global Sight Network was conceived by United States eye banks that wished to find new ways to distribute the abundant donated corneas available to them. In 2007, Alabama Eye Bank staff met with Jake Requard, CEO/President of Vision Share, Monty Montoya, CEO of Sightlife, Jason Woody, CEO of Lions Eye Institute for Transplantation and Research, and Dave Korroch, Executive Director of Lions Eye Bank of Eastern Virginia, to discuss the potential opportunities of developing international markets. Through this conversation, it was recommended that the Alabama Eye Bank could fill a void by transferring corneas into glycerol for worldwide distributions.

History of the Alabama Eye Bank

Since 1969, the Alabama Eye Bank has been helping blind eyes see. The illustrious history began in Mobile in 1959, fifteen years after the first Eye Bank had been established in New York City. Eugene de Juan, MD, and Eugenia Walker Metzler, RN, began this first effort in Mobile about the same time that an Eye Bank was established at University Hospital in Birmingham by Drs. Stephen Grant and Christopher Kelly, co-chiefs of ophthalmology at the University of Alabama Medical School. In the mid-1960s, several eye banks were started in the state, ultimately culminating with the full accreditation of the then-named Alabama Lions Eye and Tissue Bank by the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA). The EBAA establishes standards for the industry as directed by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The AEB is registered with and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The AEB is a member of Vision Share, a cooperative eye tissue distribution center that explores potential markets for tissue donation. Headquartered in Birmingham and with regional offices in Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile, the AEB has been among the top 10 U.S. eye banks for the number of transplantable corneas provided consistently for over two decades and in the top 5 since 2006.