Studies of human diabetic cataract and age related cataract formation have been hampered by unavailability of human tissues especially in the early stages of the disease. Eye bank tissues are first used for cornea transplants so that by the time they become available for basic research studies, the lens is no longer suitable for biochemical nor histological studies. Cataracts usually only become available after extraction which is at the end stage of their development. However, appropriate surgical lens specimens are no longer available because cataracts are generally extracted by the destructive phakoemulsification technique. Therefore, noninvasive techniques are required in order to study the lens in vivo.