Donald Gass, 76, Ophthalmologist
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Dr. J. Donald M. Gass, among the most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century, died Saturday of pancreatic cancer. He was 76.
Based on his pioneering work that helped visualize the retina and classify diseases, researchers developed treatments that saved “tens of thousands” of people from blindness, said Dr. Paul Sternberg, chairman of Vanderbilt’s ophthalmology department.
Among Gass’s discoveries was that a stretching of tissue, rather than loss of tissue, causes macular holes that disrupt the center of vision. That led to treatment innovations that can fix the condition in more than 90% of cases, Dr. Sternberg said.
In 1999, Gass was chosen by 33,000 ophthalmologists around the world as one of the 10 most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century. He won the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research in 2001 and the Laureate Recognition Award of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2004.
Gass also wrote what is considered a classic text in his field, the “Stereoscopic Atlas of Macular Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment.”
