Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) today announced the appointment of Nikki Earich to Development Director, North America. In her new role, Earich is responsible for developing and managing the organization’s fundraising initiatives, while building and strengthening partnerships with optometric practices, eye care professionals, and other key industry stakeholders.

After beginning her career in eye care working as an assistant at her father’s optometry practice, Earich partnered with her mother in 1995 to open the Eyeland of St. John’s, an optical shop in Highland Park, Ill. Soon after, Earich’s brother joined the family business and less than a year later, they opened a second location. In the following years, the company was acquired and came to be known as Spex, where Earich was responsible for all training operations as it expanded to 24 locations across Chicagoland. Since 2016, Earich has served as a staff development consultant for independent eye care professionals and other retail optical shops.

“OGS is truly optometry’s charity. We’re able to give the gift of sight only with the support and partnership of eye care professionals dedicated to the expansion of optometry around the world,” said Lois Schoenbrun, Executive Director, Optometry Giving Sight. “Nikki is one of our own. Her decades of history in optometry and her extensive nonprofit experience will be an invaluable asset as we continue our work to end preventable blindness and vision impairment due to uncorrected refractive error. We are excited to have Nikki on our team.”

Prior to joining OGS, Earich served as the Director of Development and Fundraising at The District 75 STEAM Foundation in Mundelein, Ill. During this time, Earich succeeded in raising funds and securing grants that ultimately enabled the foundation to award thousands of dollars to teachers and staff to create programs for students to further their professional development in the science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) disciplines, and granted more than 100 scholarships to low-income families to attend STEAM camps and programs.

“It is exciting to make a full-time return to eye care in this capacity,” said Earich. “I have always been invested in changing lives with better vision and look forward to continuing to make an impact with OGS.”

Click HERE for the full press release.

The new GIGI Studios Spring/Summer 2023 designs feature sophisticated and uniquely stylish lines of the Vanguard collection. In optical eyewear, we find designs with finer contours and innovative constructions, such as LORENZA, which combines an acetate front with metal temples. Made of natural Italian acetate, German stainless steel and Japanese titanium.

Distributed by Mood Eyewear: www.moodeyewear.com

Bausch + Lomb announced its exclusive ONE by ONE and Biotrue^® Eye Care Recycling programs have recycled a total of 65.8 million units, or 397,194 pounds, of used contact lenses, eye care and lens care materials, which is equivalent to the weight of three commercial-sized airplanes.

“Contact lenses, eye care and lens care materials are often not processed in standard recycling facilities due to their small size and the type of plastic used to manufacture them. As a result, they can potentially end up in landfills or waterways and contribute to plastic pollution,” said Amy Butler, vice president, Global Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability, Bausch + Lomb.

The ONE by ONE Recycling program has collected more than 65 million units of used contact lenses, top foils and blister packs since its launch in 2016. The Biotrue^® Eye Care Recycling program, the first and only eye care recycling program in the United States that launched in 2021, has collected more than 440,000 eye drop single dose units, lens cases and lens solution caps, as well as Biotrue^® Hydration Boost lubricant eye drops multi-dose bottles.

Bausch + Lomb has a similar contact lens recycling program in Canada called Every Contact Counts. For more information visit www.bausch.ca/en-ca/every-contact-counts.

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Scientists from the Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE) are poised to unveil multiple advancements in 3D printing next week during the ARVO 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans. These innovations have widespread applications, with the potential to accelerate development of drug delivery systems, biodegradable contact lenses, and pharmaceuticals.

“Our multidisciplinary team has created one of the most sophisticated 3D printing environments for ocular research in the world,” said Alex Hui, OD, PhD, FAAO, head of Biosciences at CORE. “This investment in people and technologies is opening doors for new discoveries, product validation, and clinical insights, with so many implications for enhancing vision.”

CORE’s scientific poster presentations at ARVO span several interlinked aspects of three-dimensional modeling. Three related works focus on a new, CORE-developed method to rapidly fabricate PDMS (polydimethyl siloxane) microfluidic chips at a low cost and with high throughput. These chips are used to test ocular cellular responses to various conditions, formulations, and materials. Researchers were able to incorporate human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs), which showed strong adherence, metabolic activity, and growth capability, indicating the viability of chip-based cell biological studies.

CORE also fabricated a PDMS microfluidic chip for evaluating contact lens-based drug release. ARVO organizers have designated “Fabrication of a Microfluidic Chip for Ophthalmic Drug Delivery Studies Using 3D Printing” (Ramasamy M., et al.) as a scientific highlight for the entire conference.

Another CORE program to be shared in New Orleans developed a biodegradable bioink for fabricating ophthalmic devices. A novel gelatin methacrylate (GelMA)-centric formulation was used with a commercial masked-stereolithography (mSLA) 3D printer, with the resulting material assessed for degradation. Investigators also fabricated a contact lens from the same material, without requiring any support structures during printing.

In a quest to better evaluate ocular drug delivery, CORE scientists designed a soft hydrogel eye model, including an upper and lower eyelid, a frontal surface to mimic the cornea and sclera, and an internal chamber to mimic the interior of the eye. The eyeball and the lower eyelid were 3D bioprinted, then fit to a CORE-created in vitro OcuBlink device for automated blinking and tear collection. The outcomes supported the method for testing that more closely mimics a human ocular system, especially for drug absorption through the cornea.

Click HERE for the full press release.