Dr. Mohamed Abou Shousha: Through Your Eyes
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It's Live in the Bream with host of Fox News at Night, Shannon Bream. Today on Live in the Bream, a subject near and dear to my heart, something I've talked about openly. And we've got an expert who is going to shepherd us through this, tell us some unique things that he's doing to help. And this is all about your eye health.

I have a condition that has led me to really painful moments and through several doctors until I found a great one. And we've got another one joining us today to walk us through what we need to know, how to take better care of ourselves and some really cutting edge things he's doing. Dr. Mohamed Abou Shusha is an ophthalmologist at the University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is the top eye institute in the country. He is a professor as well in all

kinds of difficult things that I couldn't get through one class. But he does it all with electrical and computer engineering, biomedical engineering, not to mention medicine. And he's leading a team of scientists as well, researching all kinds of things. And he's come up with some incredible technology. Doctor, great to have you with us. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Well, first of all, I have to ask you, how did you get into this field? Why did you feel drawn to this?

Actually, my dad was an ophthalmologist and he is very passionate about his patients and about helping them live a better life. And I remember as a kid, him coming from work so excited about the people he helped and telling me stories about like this patient who came to him, he couldn't see and then he did surgery for him. And that patient, you know, is a different person. So it's very inspiring.

Yeah. And that's how I feel about my doctor who helped me through my diagnosis and eventual surgery too, because you're really giving people their lives back. I mean, our site is something we can never take for granted. And there are a lot of complications that can come. I was one of those little kids who I knew I couldn't see the board at school. And so I did everything to kind of hide it because I didn't want to wear glasses. Now, when I see little kids with glasses, I'm like, this is the cutest thing ever. Like we shouldn't be afraid to go get help.

whatever our problem is, big or small with our eyes. And I know that you worry that during COVID, a lot of people sort of checked out of getting their checkups of, you know, whether they had a concern or not, there are things we need to monitor. Totally, Shannon. And limited access to vision care is a very big problem. So what is your biggest fear? This was a question that people were asked

in a survey and the answer was death or losing vision. And some people actually prefer to die than lose their vision. This is how important our vision is for us. But what do we do to protect our vision? Unfortunately, very little. The American Optometric Association and the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommended annual eye examinations.

And very, like, very little of us are doing this. And, you know, we see that this is being driven by limited access to vision care. The whole health and wellness and diagnostics for the eye

is really driven by what we call furniture-grade medical devices. Like you go to an eye clinic and it's full of rooms, dark rooms with technicians and every room has like a huge device, 50 pounds and $50,000. And patients keep moving from one device to the other. So there is like a limited access to vision care.

This is a status quo. And we're talking about diseases that are very prevalent. Like if I tell you glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, strokes, diabetic retinopathy,

Most of us know some friend or a family member who has that condition. So that's how prevalent those conditions are. And the treatment is to prevent further damage, but not really to reverse because those conditions, a lot of them are irreversible. So it's important not to wait because...

No matter how fearful we may be, and a lot of people don't like to go to any doctor. They've skipped the dentist and the eye doctor and everything else the last couple of years because they're like, well, I've got to pass. There's this pandemic and I can't get there safely. But what you're telling us is that catching things and treating them where they're at can make a huge difference in quality of life and saving vision.

Exactly. And what we have seen during COVID is that the system for vision care is slow. It's difficult, but it came to a complete stop with COVID. And this is when we and my colleagues at Bascom Palmer started seeing that people are, you know, like losing their vision because they can't come to see the eye doctor anymore.

And this was the moment when we really developed the technology that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, I want to ask you about this because it's like nothing I've heard before. And anytime I hear a new innovation with eye care or diagnosis, I'm a huge fan of wanting to know more. Very curious because I know what my road was like to become finally diagnosed. So tell us how in the world you came up with this and how does this work?

So this is a wearable platform. It's a wearable device. You put that device on your head and then it's a very user friendly. It talks to you and tell you what you need to do. And then you get your eye tested. So is it kind of like a video game, like the goggles that you would put on for virtual reality or something like that?

It is. So we're converting that intimidating experience sitting on those big intimidating devices running Windows 2000 in cutting edge ways.

technology in a wearable device that is very interactive and it tests your vision in seconds. And we have the health and wellness applications. Each test take like 30 seconds and it can tell you if there is a problem or no problem. And if there is a problem, it actually does a complete eye exam, like a full threshold diagnostic to the eye.

Wow. And I got to think this is something great with young people and kids because they're so comfortable with that technology anyway. It is. And for elderly as well. So how in the world do you put something on these goggles and run these tests? And I'm assuming the tests are for different eye conditions. How does that then read the eye, give you the information you need as a physician?

So this is a power of cloud computing AI and wearable devices. So we partnered with Magic Leap and with Microsoft and with other big manufacturers using headsets that has biosensors. They look at your eye. You see how you react to stimuli that we're presenting in front of you on the display. And through this,

algorithms were able to detect if there is an eye problem or not. So it's very sophisticated cloud computing algorithms and it is equivalent to a room full of

big, expensive devices in an eye hospital. This is the beauty of it. So it will obviously make care more accessible if somebody goes and just has to put on a headset instead of a doctor trying to start up a practice and having to invest in these machines that aren't easy to move around. They cost a fortune. What kinds of things can they diagnose?

So currently in our platform, we have six vision diagnostics. We have visual field testing, a screening one, and a full threshold. We have contrast sensitivity, and contrast sensitivity is testing your functional vision. There is not anymore that chart white and black

The big letters. It's more of like testing your functional vision, how you do in real life. And also color vision testing. 5% of males have color blindness. So we have a screening test and we have a full diagnostic test to characterize the vision condition.

the color vision problems. And we also have dark adaptation, which is a test for age-related macular degeneration. So it's a full suite of eye tests that characterize the vision of the user. And this is just the beginning because when we launched our product back in October of 2021,

We had only one test, but we have launched now additional tests and we will be launching more. So currently we have six tests in this eyeglasses. The vision here is really replacing all the devices in an eye clinic into one wearable device to improve access to vision care. So how soon could the average eye patient see something like this in their doctor's office?

Oh, it's actually we're in 38 states now. We're in 38 states. And this is a power of the platform that we created because we launched just in October. And think of it like, what, like four months, including holidays. And we went from just launching from our first customer to like 38 days.

uh, states, uh, and eye clinics. And, uh,

you know, it's thousands of eyes are being tested using Hero device. So I know that the stats on this say that traditionally you'd have about $300,000 worth of equipment to get all of these tests down into this now piece of equipment, about $2,500. I mean, how is that going to improve access for people really all over the world where there are limits on what can be spent and the ability to get your hands on this kind of equipment? Yeah.

Exactly, Shannon. So our vision is democratized vision care. And Vascom Palmer is the number one eye hospital in the US and the world. We have a mission. So Hero is here to democratize vision care. And that's why we had to bring the price to make it very, very affordable, because this is our mission, access to vision care.

We'll have more live in the bream in a moment.

Now, I think back to what you said about having a passion for this because of your father and how much he loved changing people's lives. Could he have imagined something like this and just the real difference that you'd be able to make, you know, just one generation down the line? Yes, definitely. And, you know, it's really like we know what the problem is and, you know, it's

we we changed really the game here and there are no health and wellness applications for the eye

before Hero and now Hero bring the technology that will enable us to take better care of our eyes. I got to tell you, so, you know, what I've shared about my situation is that I have a genetic cornea condition in that I was tearing my corneas quite a bit with these recurrent corneal erosions that I had no idea what was happening. Like I said, I bounced doctor to doctor until I had one who before he even examined me, just talking to me, said, I know what you have. Now we got to figure out what's causing it.

And it was such a relief to me to sort of get my life back. I find because of that, I've had so many people reach out to me through friends or through social media or through my email and just say, I've got this serious problem. I'm in pain all the time, or I have this extreme dryness and I can't find any solutions. So I'm no doctor, but I try to then share whatever knowledge I've gotten or refer them to a really good doctor. But something I find common with women is

around my age and my trouble started late thirties into my forties. And now I'm, you know, 51 is this issue of dryness. Any hints that you can give us for getting answers, no matter what your eye health problem is and, and how to go about that so that you get some real solutions. Yeah.

Yeah, so preventive medicine is very important. And now as Americans, we know that health and wellness is very important. And, you know, like just waiting till...

the person has a problem to go see the doctor is not a good idea. So health and wellness applications, going to see the eye doctor for preventive medicine is very important. So we're able to catch disease before it causes damage.

Nothing really more painful to me as a physician than going to see a patient and already seeing a damage that I can't really reverse. And there is no technology to reverse. It is like, you know, it's, and unfortunately this is not uncommon. A lot of the eye diseases are irreversible. So preventive medicine is very important. And this is really why the,

American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Optometric Association are recommending we get eye exams, annual eye exams. So I will share with you that a study came from Johns Hopkins where they screened 5,000 people walking down the street, just randomly selecting people and asking them to come to get their eye checked. 26%, 26%.

had vision defects that they didn't know about. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I, I know that you are heavily involved in research, um, the scientific side of this, the, the clinical side of this. Um, but you're also, you see patients and I got to ask you, do you have those, those feelings and those stories in those days, like your dad did, where you were able to diagnose and help someone and feel like I really made a difference in their life? Yeah. So Shannon, when, um,

So I saw that patient that I did surgery for, and that patient had severe glaucoma damage. And I did his surgery and his vision improved, but he comes to me and explained to me how, you know, he sees through a keyhole, how it's difficult for him to live his life, you know, like hitting doors, hitting people. And that was...

patient number zero for me. So I heard his story. I went to the lab. I gathered my colleagues and the engineers working with me in the lab. And we came up with Hero Technology to help

to help this patient and other patients. And this is something that is very exciting is that we, so Hero is going to be coming up with vision augmentation application, which is a digital glasses that can help patients with vision defects to see better. So we're, we're,

we're driven really by a passion to help people improve their quality of life and improve their vision. Well, and I know when you talk about glaucoma, we probably all know someone or have a loved one or family member who is struggling with that. Can you tell me anything more about the technology, the timeline maybe for what you're working on? Sure. So we, we,

We launched our diagnostics back in October after getting FDA registration. We are scaling in eye clinics. We're going to move even to provide like eye care everywhere. You know, it's not so we can like really reach everybody to get their eye tested. And we're also working on vision augmentation and we we,

foresee that same time in 2023, as today, we're going to have vision augmentation out for patients to improve their quality of life, allow them to see better using our glasses. That will be such good news for so many people. So the timeline is not something too distant as to we think 10 or 15 years down the road, you're saying this is much closer.

Exactly. And we published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology our results. We have a clinical trial registered with clinicaltrials.gov. So we're moving. We're moving quickly on that. So if somebody wants to know about the technology that you now have out with the diagnostic tests, if they want to know more about that or if it's available in their area or through their doctor, is there somewhere they can check online to get more information? Of course. Yeah. Seehero.com.

And it's spelled H-E-R-U. Correct. Okay. Well, it's fantastic technology. I'm always so grateful that anybody is making strides online.

and just dedicating their life as you have to helping people with serious eye issues. And a great reminder too, that we all need to get these regular checks. You want to catch a problem if you've got one as early as possible. And once a year is recommended. I'm in there a lot more, but hopefully those who are listening will be fine with their once a year check. And who knows? I remember the first time I put on glasses, I was stunned that that's how normal people saw the world.

So you may be in for a pleasant surprise if you go in and get a check and see how much better things could be for you. Dr. Mohamed Abou-Shusha, we thank you so much for your time and for the work that you are doing as well to make other people's lives that much better. Thank you so much, Shannon. That is this week's Live in the Brain.

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