March 29, 2015
Skitter Photo/StockSnap.io
Thomas Gray's donated retinas have been used in a Penn researcher's efforts to cure retinoblastoma.
Over the past few years, one boy's family has discovered how much of an impact his life has had on many, even though he only lived for six days.
His mother, Sarah Gray, knew her sick baby would not live long, but she decided to make the most of his life. "Instead of thinking of our son as a victim, I started thinking of him as a contributor to research, to science," she told Philly.com.
Her sons, Thomas and Callum Gray, were born at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia on March 23, 2010. Callum was healthy, at five pounds, 10 ounces. Thomas was four pounds and was born missing part of his brain.
Six days later, Thomas died, and within hours, his eyes, liver and umbilical cord blood from him and his brother were recovered and sent to researchers.
This began a journey that would lead the Grays to Philadelphia five years later.
Over the years, the family discovered that Thomas's corneas had been used in a study that could one day help cure corneal blindness. The differences in the twins' cord blood could one day help prevent the baby's fatal defect, anencephaly.
By coincidence, Gray later learned that Thomas's retinas had been shipped to the University of Pennsylvania. She arranged to meet with the researcher, Arupa Ganguly, who used the donation in her efforts to cure retinoblastoma.
Ganguly said the Grays are the only family to ever donate a child's healthy retinas to the lab, Newsworks reports.
"Tissue has to be collected very quickly, as soon as a child is dead, within four hours, it has to go into a special solution, so it takes very big coordination, that's why it's very rare," Ganguly told Newsworks.
Gray now works for the American Association of Tissue Banks.
"The way I see it, our son got into Harvard, Duke, and Penn," Gray told Philly.com. "He has a job. He is relevant to the world. I only hope my life can be as relevant."
