Filam Develops Device to Detect Cataracts Early

WASHINGTON D.C. – A Filipino American ophthalmologist conducting research on cataracts at the world famous US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland recently developed a device that can detect early cataracts before they become irreversible.
This device is based on a Space probe used to study protein crystals in the Space Station which has been converted into an eye instrument by a team of scientist led by Dr. Manuel B. Datiles III., an officer of National Eye Institute (NEI) which is part of NIH.). He said the device can safely detect lens protein changes before a cataract becomes visible. With this information, one can avoid developing a cataract by making changes in one’s lifestyle, such as stopping smoking, protecting one’s eyes with UV- blocking sunglasses, taking anti oxidant vitamins and controlling one’s diabetes.
Dr. Datiles hopes that eventually, he can use the devise to test one of the anti cataract drugs that his and other teams around the world are developing. He also hopes that the device will eventually be used as an early alarm system to warn patients that they are doing something harmful so they can change their lifestyle and avoid developing cataracts and perhaps even delay aging and other diseases..
While most researchers are still using photography and slit lamp biomicroscopy to examine and study the lenses in patients, Dr. Datiles teamed up with a physicist from NASA-Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH, Rafat Ansari, Ph.D., to develop this new DLS device. DLS stands for Dynamic Light Scattering, a new technique that uses Brownian movement, the constant random movement of all molecules, to detect the size and shape of these molecules. Using safe low powered laser light similar to the ones used in supermarkets, the device shines alight into the lens of the patient’s eye for 5 seconds while a photo detector send the signals to a computer which then processes the diffusion coefficients and converts the signals to a distribution table showing the sizes of particles in the lens.
Dr. Datiles III, who was born in Manila in 1951, came to the US in 1979 after graduating cum laude from UST Medical School, topping the Medical Boards and completing an ophthalmology residency at the UP-PGH Medical Center. He trained at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins Hospital as a cornea and cataract surgeon, and completed a research fellowship also in cornea and cataract at the National Eye Institute of the NIH before settling as a tenured senior investigator (equivalent to a university professor) at the NIH. His main aim: to find a cure for cataracts, the clouding of the lens of the eye, the main cause of blindness in the world today.
Dr. Datiles is the son of Dr. Roberto Aquiling Datiles and Loreta C. Bernaldez of Zamboanga del Sur and Roxas city, respectively. He is married to lawyer Jacqueline Romero with whom they have six children, namely Michelle, a Washington DC lawyer and Opus Dei Center Director; Joyce, a Georgetown and Oxford University graduate who is doing a doctorate at Cambridge University in UK; Margaret, a phi beta kappa member and magna cum laude graduate of Catholic University and now a Washington DC lawyer; Jennifer, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Masters graduate and currently a staff member at the US National Academy of Science/Institute of Medicine in Washington DC; Manuel IV, a phi beta kappa member and summa cum laude graduate of Johns Hopkins, now in Univ. of Maryland medical school and Michael, a Deans List student in the Honors Program of Catholic University in Washington DC
Over the years, he said he has mentored such prominent young Filipinos like Dr. Teddy Gancayco, Ophthalmologist and past President of the Wash DC Filipino physicians group, and Dr. Michael Tolentino, also an ophthalmologist now in Florida.
He said many of his students are now in practice and some are faculty members of UP and UST medical schools in the Philippines.
“I have participated in many medical missions to the Philippines but these are merely scratching the surface and not really making much long term impact, unlike when one answers basic medical and science questions which have a wider and deeper impact in alleviating the suffering of mankind.

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