Eversight

RESORING SIGHT Eversight continues to take meaningful steps toward transforming the future of vision care by supporting sustainable eye banking infrastructure and providing priceless clinical education. In 2024, Eversight provided the gift of sight to more than 10,200 people across the United States and around the world. Eversight provided 59 corneas for sight-restoring transplants gratis or at a reduced fee for uninsured patients.Eversight's work began in 1947 with the establishment of the fourth eye bank in the United States, then known as the Illinois Eye-Bank. Over time, nonprofit eye banks were established in every state to meet the critical demand for corneal tissue to treat preventable blindness.In 1985, the Illinois Eye-Bank and Michigan Eye-Bank formed a partnershipone that would earn a reputation for clinical excellence made possible by some of the finest medical directors, staff and board members in the eye banking field. The success of the organization attracted affiliations with other regional eye banks forming one of the largest networks of eye banks in the U.S. In 2015, the network became known as Eversight, all working together as a unified operation to deliver the highest quality services to surgeons and their patients and to continue to grow our impact around the world.Eversight provided more than 14,900 tissues for transplantation, research and education globally in 2024. We worked or placed tissue with physicians and researchers in 34 countries and facilitated training for 918 clinicians. Together with all our partnersadvocates, donor families, transplant recipients, surgeons, Lions, fellow eye banks, healthcare leaders, philanthropic supporters and many otherswe were able to make vision a reality for more people worldwide.

FINDING A CURE In the pursuit of eliminating blinding eye diseases, Eversight established the Eversight Center for Vision and Eye Banking Research in Cleveland, Ohio, to provide leading ophthalmology researchers with the resources they need to find cures and treatments for eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. Eversight provided more than 4,700 tissues for research and education purposes in 2024. Our in-house research team also provided Eversight partners with valuable research and development services and pioneered new eye banking practices.Since 2014, the Eversight researchers have authored 50 publications and given 34+ presentations at international conferences. The team published six publications in 2024 on: comparing cornea storage medias, perceptions of cornea and eye donation, automated counting and density of donor endothelial cells, protocol for corneal stromal stem cell cultivation, using trypan blue for cell viability after preloading DMEK grafts, and docosahexaenoic acid in diabetic humans and mice. With our many academic partners, Eversight researchers have contributed to over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers that have garnered 6,300 citations and counting.Eversight has a longstanding track record of research and development, having awarded more than $4 million in grants to date that stimulate pioneering clinical and basic science research aiming to develop new ways to restore sight, prevent blindness and ultimately help patients live life to the fullest. Since 1980, our Eye & Vision Research Grant Program has supported researchers at leading academic medical institutions including Harvard, Tufts, Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve, University of Michigan, Northwestern and more. By design, Eversight's grant program provides critical, early-stage funding that is intended to drive foundational research and discovery. Many of these projects have stimulated larger-scale studies and won further financial support from the National Institutes of Health.In the 2025 funding cycle, Eversight awarded four grants at Loyola University Chicago, University of Houston, University of Illinois Chicago and University of Michigan to advance studies to investigate developing a novel drug evaluation system to stimulate blood vessel growth experimentally using factors that have been linked to the pathophysiology of both wAMD and PDR; enhancing limbal stem cell preservation; understanding the biomechanics of keratoconus by looking at the composition and microstructure of normal human and keratoconus corneal extracellular matrix; and advancing therapies for ocular surface squamous neoplasia. Each year, recipients are selected by an independent review panel of academic researchers and ophthalmologists. This distinguished panel awards proposals that encourage meaningful scientific inquisition and align with Eversight's mission to restore sight and prevent blindness through the healing power of donation, transplantation and research.