Why give?

NEARLY 2.2 BILLION people worldwide live with severe vision impairment or blindness, and with an aging population, these numbers continue to escalate steeply. Further, many people living with vision loss do not have access to even basic eye care. These factors contribute to a serious unmet need globally in diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and corneal degeneration, as well as in rare but debilitating eye diseases caused by genetics, inflammation, tumors, or other conditions. 

Our vision at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford is to address this urgent problem head-on, with the goal to eliminate blindness and ocular disease in our community and abroad. To achieve that, we have assembled a comprehensive multidisciplinary research endeavor with the support of our generous community. Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, genetics, imaging, stem cell medicine, and technology have given us real opportunity to cure these as-yet incurable diseases and to reverse the vision loss they cause.

Stanford's unmatched depth and breadth of expertise in each of these fields and our unique ability to leverage these breakthroughs makes us optimistic that cures are on the horizon. But finding cures isn't enough. We must get them to patients faster, so at the Byers Eye Institute we are focused on accelerating the development of therapies and expediting clinical trials.

From discovery to delivery, we have brought together the best minds and the best technologies and are determined to combat blindness and vision loss. If you believe in our vision and want to support our research efforts, please contact:

To make a gift online, click here or contact:

Melanie Erasmus

Senior Associate Director of Development

650.269.4251 | merasmus@stanford.edu

Laura Gable

Development Officer, Major Gifts

650.888.9197 | lauraw1@stanford.edu



By MEDICAL CENTER DEVELOPMENT