LAUSR

In the 1970s, endothelial cell density was the only parameter that mattered for measuring the health of a cornea following a surgical intervention. I was then a cornea fellow at the eye department in Park Ridge Hospital, Rochester, NY. In our patients, the corneal reaction to cataract surgery with similar preoperative cell density differed. While some of them developed edema, others didn’t, and nobody was looking beyond cell density for answers. In 1976, I was introduced to a specular microscope for the first time—one of only four in the world—at the hospital. No one had used it before, and I was given the microscope as my research project. Weeks of tinkering and fiddling with that finicky instrument for my studies on corneal endothelium gave me an insight that would change the course of my life. The specular microscope, after much coaxing, helped me establish the importance of cell morphology and polymegethism and its role in preserving corneal transparency.