The National Eye Bank Center, established by TBI/Tissue Banks International, is a state-of-the-art facility designed to centralize the screening, evaluation and shipping of eye tissue for sight-restoring corneal transplant surgery and for ocular research. 

The first such Center in the world, the multi-million dollar project will offer surgeons and their patients the largest concentration of ocular tissue for sight-restoring corneal transplant procedures and other ocular surgery.  Using cutting edge technology, eye tissue collected by eye banks around the country will undergo all the stringent steps necessary to ensure its safety, quality and rapid and efficient distribution to surgeons and researchers in the US and overseas. The National Eye Bank Center’s Memphis, Tennessee location affords close proximity to the worldwide headquarters of FedEx® and to the area’s thriving medical and biotech communities.   

The Plough Foundation, Alcon, Inc., Allergan, Inc., Advanced Medical Optics, and The Karl Kirchgessner Foundation each helped blaze the trail for The National Eye Bank Center’s successful fundraising campaign.  Collectively, their leadership gifts satisfied nearly fifty percent of the project’s funding target.  

The Plough Foundation was established in 1960 by Abe Plough, president of a health-care products company that later merged with Schering Corporation, a world-wide pharmaceutical company, to form the Schering-Plough Corporation. Through grants to worthy projects, this private, independent Foundation fulfills Mr. Plough’s philanthropic vision. The grant to the national center that will help so many truly reflects Able Plough’s philosophy of giving: “You do the greatest good when you help the greatest number of people.” 

Advanced Medical Optics was the first major ophthalmic company to gift toward The National Eye Bank Center Campaign.  “AMO is pleased to support the development of TBI’s innovative National Eye Bank Center in Memphis,” said James V. Mazzo, AMO’s President and Chief Executive Officer.  “We are proud to team with TBI and The National Eye Bank Center to help bring sight to the visually impaired.”         

Non-profit TBI/Tissue Banks International, founded as a single eye bank in 1962, today is a far-reaching network of associated eye and tissue banks throughout the United States and around the world. By centralizing the complex steps involved in eye tissue preparation, The National Eye Bank Center will ensure that participating eye banks will be able to meet the increasingly comprehensive oversight requirements of FDA regulations.  The National Eye Bank Center will apply its state-of-the-art technology to meet, even exceed, current FDA regulations. And, as they grow ever more stringent, The National Eye Bank Center will proactively anticipate and assure compliance with new regulations.

Gerald J. Cole, TBI’s president and chief executive officer, says: “The National Eye Bank Center will help us ensure a more uniform standard of quality, provide better operating efficiencies, and allow us to make more tissues available for both transplant surgery and eye research.”

Primary among the ocular tissues recovered by TBI eye banks is the cornea, the clear piece of tissue at the front of the eye.  When damaged by disease, trauma or inherited condition, loss of sight can occur.  Corneal blindness is one of the reversible forms of blindness.  In the transplant procedure, a skilled surgeon removes the damaged cornea and replaces it with a cornea donated to an eye bank.  In the United States, the success rate for corneal transplantation under optimal conditions is higher than 90 percent.  The National Eye Bank Center will also provide specialty grafts for a wide range of ocular surgical procedures.

For more information, contact Kathleen C. Terlizzese, CFRE, TBI/Tissue Banks International at 410-752-3800 or kterlizzese@tbionline.org