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Along with Joe Goldberg, O.D., double the thickness of the lipid layer. It is now marketed he founded the Association of Contact Lens and sold by Alimera Sciences. Manufacturers. In lectures, Dr. Borish continues to Dr. Korb also recently identified a tiny and previously remind his colleagues that optics and contact lens fittingoverlooked part of the eye, akin to a windshield wiper. The remain at the core of the profession. “lid-wiper” is the portion of the marginal conjunctiva of the upper eyelid that acts as a wiping surface to spread the Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses tear film over the ocular surface, or the surface of contact New York optometrist Leonard Seidner, O.D., is lenses. Lid-wiper epitheliopathy (LWE), as described by considered by many to be the godfather of gas Dr. Korb and colleagues in 200211 and 2005,12 is highly permeable lenses.correlated with symptomatic dryness in contact lens An important early contact lens practitioner, Dr.wearers. Since it often occurs in the absence of any corneal Seidner was also possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit.staining that would provide clinical confirmation of dry He and his brother formed Guaranteed Contact Lenseye, LWE may hold the key to understanding an entire Company, a successful small manufacturer. In 1970, they segment of contact lens intolerant patients. launched the Polymer Optics Contact Lens Company and His dry eye research has given Dr. Korb great commissioned polymer chemist Norman Gaylord, credibility in the medical eye-care community. “I think Ph.D., to work with them on a new, more oxygen-we have to credit him with being one of the first anterior permeable material.segment specialists in optometry,” said Dr. Epstein. “If At the time, Guaranteed was already making lathe-cut not for the respect he almost single-handedly gained for soft lenses. But when Dr. Seidner realized that getting a our profession, we would be nowhere in terms of soft lens through the newly created FDA approval14 | medical treatment of the eye.” process would be cost-prohibitive, he focused instead on Both Donald and Joan Exford Korb continue to finding a better rigid lens material. He and Dr. Gaylord innovate, research and see patients in the practice they created the Polycon lens, made of a siloxane- founded: Korb & Associates of Boston. methacrylate polymer that was the first material of its1977Dr. Korb and colleagues describe a syndrome they calledgiant papillary conjunctivitis (GPC).kind. The lens was patented under Dr. Gaylord’s name in 1974 and sold to Syntex Ophthalmics, which brought it to market in 1979. “Len’s early recognition that PMMA lenses caused edema and the intensity of his quest to resolve that problem was a major contribution” underlying later developments, said his close friend and colleague Dr. Korb.Dr. Seidner never stopped thinking about how to improve contact lenses.
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