Abstract: An apparatus comprising an accommodative stimulation device, an electromagnetic wave exposure device, and an imaging device. The apparatus acquires imaging information about an eye by means of the electromagnetic wave exposure device and the imaging device as the apparatus simultaneously stimulates the eye to undergo at least one reversible accommodative transition from any first state of accommodation to any second state of accommodation by means of the accommodative stimulation device. The accommodative stimulation device has an axis of projection that is substantially perpendicular to a visual axis of the eye, along which axis of projection an adjustable accommodative target is projected through a system of Badal optics, having a Badal optical axis coincident with the axis of projection, to strike a half-silvered mirror lying in a plane that forms an angle of about 45 degrees with the axis of projection and the visual axis of the eye.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a novel protein expression system having an oligonucleotide encoding a small heat shock protein (sHSP) operably linked to a promoter and an oligonucleotide encoding a protein of interest. In one embodiment the expressed sHSP is a truncated &agr;-crystallin polypeptide derived from a wild-type &agr;-crystallin protein, wherein the truncated sHSP lacks an N-terminal sequence present in the wild-type &agr;-crystallin polypeptide. In an additional embodiment, a protein is coexpressed with a sHSP, thereby increasing the level of expression, enhancing folding and increasing the solubility of the protein.