By Johns Lazarou
Johns Hopkins Medicine

The Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute will celebrate the dedication of The Walter J. Stark, M.D., and Margaret C. Mosher Center for Cataract and Corneal Disease on Friday, Oct. 7, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Patz Lecture Hall in the Wilmer building, East Baltimore campus.

The new center will focus on the research, evaluation and management of corneal and external eye diseases, especially cataracts.

Margaret C. Mosher's relationship with the Wilmer Eye Institute began in the 1980s, when she was initially treated by Wilmer Director Emeritus Arnall Patz in the Retinal Vascular Service and subsequently by Walter J. Stark. Mosher, a businesswoman and philanthropist, was a leading contributor to the Wilmer Eye Institute for more than a decade and died in 2002. Her generosity to Wilmer began in 1991, when she, along with mutual friends and patients Ray Stark, Ralph O'Connor and Dana and Albert Broccoli, funded the Walter J. Stark Distinguished Professorship in Ophthalmology. A once-active member of the Wilmer Advisory Council and financial supporter of many Wilmer research programs, she gave the lead gift for the A. Edward Maumenee Professorship in Ophthalmology and in 1998 created the Walter J. Stark Corneal Research Fund.

"Through her close contact with Wilmer physicians, she learned about the institute's research programs to prevent and cure eye diseases and the importance of private philanthropy in support of them," Stark said. "Maggie was enthusiastic not only because of her own eye problems, but also because she wanted to help others."

Stark, the current director of the newly dedicated Stark-Mosher Center for Cataract and Corneal Diseases at the Wilmer Eye Institute, is recognized as an international leader in corneal transplantation, use of the excimer laser and intraocular lens implantation for rehabilitation of patients with visual disability. Additionally, he is medical director of the Medical Eye Bank of Maryland and director of the medical board of directors at Tissue Banks International, two organizations that he helped develop. In 2003, he received the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Life Achievement Honor Award, among the highest honors awarded in the field.

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