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Completely contradictory to common practice at the time, the Korb fit dramatically improved the exchange of oxygenated tears beneath the contact lens.8In 1977, Dr. Korb and colleagues described a syndrome they called giant papillary conjunctivitis, or GPC.9 “Don Korb has a dynamic sense of how things work, and the intellectual curiosity to look beyond the obvious,” said Art Epstein, O.D.One of the things he noticed was that contact lenseswere starving the cornea of oxygen. Inspired by the rabbit’s third eyelid, a transparent nictitating membrane, Dr. Korb set out to make a lens that was only as thick as a few epithelial cells, or about 30μm thick. “That was a pretty arrogant proposition,” he acknowledges now. At | 13the time, rigid lenses were 200μm to 300μm thick. Nevertheless, in 1972, he patented the CSI Lens, the first ultrathin non-HEMA soft lens. Polymer chemist 1974 1976Drs. Seidner and Gaylord patent the Polycon lens, made of a Dr. Holden establishes the Cornea and Contact Lens Research Unit (CCLRU)siloxane-methacrylate polymer that was the first material of its kind. at the University of New South Wales in Australia.Miguel Refojo and others helped create the revolutionary The man who first introduced the Korbs to eachnew membrane lens, as it was often called. It was other, Irvin M. Borish, O.D., F.A.A.O., is one of theapproved by the FDA and launched by Syntex and most influential leaders in optometry. No account ofSola/Barnes-Hind in 1981. pioneers in the field would be complete without him. Dr.In addition to his numerous Borish is probably best known for hiscontributions to lens design, materials and classic textbook, Clinical Refraction, firstfitting, Dr. Korb’s greatest legacy will likely published in 1944, and for expandingbe in the area of dry eye and lipid layer optometry’s scope of practice by launchingphysiology. the movements for diagnostic andHe considers his best work to date to be therapeutic prescribing authority in thea 1980 paper that first named meibomian late 1960s.gland dysfunction (MGD) and identified it He is equally distinguished in theas a cause of contact lens intolerance.10 contact lens field. Dr. Borish was one ofThis work was performed with Antonio the first people to wear bifocal contact Henriquez, M.D., Ph.D., an Edward S. Bennett, O.D., M.S.Ed., and lenses, and he became an expert in fitting Irvin M. Borish, O.D., F.A.A.O., in ophthalmologist, pathologist and corneal October, 1992 at the annual meeting them. His many papers on contact lenssurgeon who was and remains very close to of the Contact Lens Manufacturers patient care show his “profound mastery” Association. the Korbs. One result of malfunctioning of the subject.12 Dr. Borish was vicemeibomian glands is an inadequate tear film lipid layer. president of the Indiana Contact Lens Co., where he In the late 1980s, Dr. Korb invented Soothe, a metastable developed new techniques for improving optical charact-oil-in-water emulsion that has been shown to more than eristics of contact lenses.
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