Like almost all new parents, Bryan and Elizabeth Shaw started snapping pictures of their son, Noah, from the moment he was born.
When he was about three months old, Elizabeth noticed something odd when taking his picture. The flash on their camera created the typical red dot in the center of Noah's left eye, but the right eye had a white spot at the center, almost as if the flash were being reflected back at the camera by something. When Elizabeth mentioned it to their doctor, she shined a light into Noah's eye, and saw the same white reflection. She realized there was something wrong and arranged for a complete examination for Noah right away. As the result showed, a white reflection is a telltale sign of retinal cancer and that was exactly what Noah had. He endured months of painful treatments, but doctors ultimately could not save his eye.
However, Noah's condition was treatable if caught early. Bryan Shaw couldn't help but wonder whether there were signs he'd missed. He went back over every picture of Noah and discovered the first white spot in a photo taken when Noah was 12 days old. As time went on, it appeared more frequently. Bryan, a chemistry professor found by the time Noah was four months old, it appeared in approximately 25 percent of the pictures taken of him.
It was too late for Noah's eye, but Bryan was bent on putting his hard-won insights to good use. He created a database that charted the cancer's appearance in every photo. He also collected photos and data from eight other children with the same condition. Armed with the data, he began to work with colleagues to develop an app that can scan the photos in the user's camera roll to search for white eye and can be used as a kind of ophthalmoscope (检眼镜): White Eye Detector, and it is now available for free on Google Play and in Apple's App Store.
"I just kept telling myself, I really need to do this." Bryan told the interviewer. "This disease is tough to detect. Not only can this software save vision, but it can save lives."
