Dynamic Light Scattering Developed to Look Through the Eye's Window Into the Body

Microgravity researcher Dr. Rafat R. Ansari, from the NASA Glenn Research Center, has found that the eye operates much like a camera and is the "window to the body." The eye contains transparent tissue through which light passes, providing us a view of what's going on inside. These transparent tissues represent nearly every tissue type that exists throughout the body. With the correlations and comparisons of these tissues done at Glenn, we hope to improve doctors' ability to diagnose diseases at much earlier stages. The medical community will be able to look noninvasively and quantitatively into a patient's eyes to detect disease before symptoms appear. Since the eye is easily accessed by light, the optical technologies created at Glenn can be used to evaluate its structure and physiology in health, aging, and disease.