Free Post 4: Artificial Bone Marrow

After talking with a friend about this blog assignment, I had the idea of looking into artificial bone marrow. I found an article from Science Daily describing just that. Researchers at the University of Michigan created a substance that could make human red blood cells and various types of white blood stem cells. The substance was even made in to a structure resembling actual human bone marrow. The structure built around a clear plastic structure that had spherical gaps throughout the structure then bone marrow seed sells were placed across the artificial structure. The reason this structure is porous is because in the human body there are blood vessels that travel through the gaps in the bone marrow to collect all the new blood cells. Unfortunately this specific substance was not made for implementation into the human body. The purpose of the substance was to test what effect cancer treatments had on the operation of the marrow cells because historically cancer treatment inhibits the function of bone marrow cells, leaving a cancer patient open to bacterial infections and other illnesses. Even though it wasn't made for humans this system was implanted into mice and the artificial setup successfully created human blood cells in the mice and blood vessels grew through the set-up.

                I was actually surprised that I found this article as easily as I did; I just typed artificial bone marrow into goggle. I had no idea if it actually existed. I had thought that people had actually made new cells or something that pumped out blood cells so I was a little disappointed to find out it was the same cells just put on to an artificial structure. However I thought it was really interesting that when this was put into mice that blood vessels grew through the artificial structure. Because of this information I am confused as to why this has never been tried on humans. I am sure there are applications where people have trouble making blood. A person who has lost their legs might have this problem since the femur is where the most bone marrow is located in humans. Perhaps an amputee might need some extra blood making capabilities. I am sure there are other instances where artificial bone marrow could save lives. Another thing that this article didn’t talk about is other studies that may be looking into a similar application in humans. Or what the cost might be. I imagine that it would be incredibly expensive to introduce enough to make much of a difference in the overall cardio vascular system. So perhaps applicability is why this hasn't been attempted or been deemed important enough to be mentioned in this article. I also would have liked this article to go into more detail about how cancer drugs affect bone marrow cells. I think it also would have been nice if the article had more explanation of the white blood cell’s ability to fight infections and even cancer cells. However, I had some previous knowledge of this topic due to an HIV/AIDS presentation I did last year. Over all I was interested in this article I just would have liked more detail.

Works Cited

University of Michigan. "Artificial Human Bone Marrow Created In A Test Tube." ScienceDaily, 23 Dec. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2013.

Prompted Post 3: Interview a Professional

For this post I interviewed my cousin. Since he is working and had a rather hectic weekend, I asked my questions by phone.  He is a mechanical engineer at a tree care and forestry product manufacturer. I talked to him about his job along with what kind of writing he does. We also spoke about the transition from college to the work place since he is a recent graduate.

 My first question was, quite simply, what do you do? He told me he is responsible for creating project designs of ether current product modifications or making plans for completely new products. For instance one of the products they make are wood chippers ranging from residential sizes, up to huge industrial wood chippers that destroy large trees. He told me that in this particular occupation that lots of his work is actually centered around 3D planning software. However, he does have to do the occasional calculation to see if using certain parts will work in certain applications and calculating how long this part might last.

                Next I asked him what his favorite part of his job was. He told me his favorite part was bringing an idea into a design and putting all the pieces together on the computer. I think doing something like this would be really cool. I have taken a class where we used similar software in a drafting class and I really enjoyed working with that program.

                My third question was “what are your biggest challenges?” His response was that sometimes his instructions are rather vague, and it is very difficult to try to design like this. For instance he might only have a small idea to work with, often with very unclear requirements, and he has to make a full design for something when he doesn't know exactly what this idea is expected to be. But it is the job he said.

                Fourth I asked “what is something you wish you had known about the job when you started?” He wished he would have known to ask more questions when he started. Being new he didn’t want to seem so green to his more experienced coworkers. However by doing this he took longer to find his way around the job.

                Next I got into the writing part of his job. He told me he mostly writes emails to people in other departments. These questions are usually clerical things, like what is meant by this or that and what part number is this. He also occasionally writes reports for new materials or process for the job.

Then it came up about what he does to revise and edit his work. What he said he usually does, in the case of emails, is he will write the email then do other work for a few minutes and revisit the email and once he is satisfied he will send it off.

After this we were just talking about the differences between working and the classroom. He thought that you don’t really need most of the actual things you learn in school; however, school is important to get people ready for working in a professional place. Most of what is important in school is learning skills to be successful if the work place and you wind up relearning most everything about what you need for the job at on sight training.

Free Post 3: Artificial Hearts

Part of the reason I chose to do my blog about bioengineering is because I was interested in prosthetics and implants. So this week I decided to look into artificial hearts. I found a great article about it through a website called How Stuff Works. I learned a lot about how these hearts work, and what it takes to get them put in.

The only successful hearts are called AbioCore hearts. These hearts are roughly the size of a grape fruit. The operate through a hydraulic pump that pumps blood to the lungs then the rest of the body. This differs from a normal heart in that a natural heart pumps to both at the same time. It is powered by a battery implanted into the patient’s abdomen along with a controller that regulates the speed of the heart. This battery has a life span of about 40 minutes without being charged. Luckily there is an external battery that is easy to charge the battery with. This is connected to the external battery through a nifty contraption that uses magnetic coils to transfer the power to leads across the skin wireless. This means that the internal system is not actually connected to anything external.

These hearts have only been used sparsely for a variety of reasons. First the procedure to replace the native heart with this new one is a grueling 7 hour procedure. Secondly their use is restricted to people who have been rejected for natural hearts, have a life expectancy of 30 days or less, and suffer from severe cardiac failure. This type of heart transplant has only been attempted 12 times. The patients have an average survival time of several months with the device. This is outstanding because the heart was only designed to double the survival time of the patients. Instead of living an extra month they live an extra 4 or 5 months before they die.

When I first read this article I was surprised that the artificial heart was a fairly uncommon thing. I thought that it seemed like a device everybody would want. Granted it has more complications than a heart transplant. However, there are thousands of heart transplants done every year and there have only been 12 artificial implants done. I understand that these procedures are incredibly expensive, with the device and manpower required, but I think more than 12 patients with qualifications for the heart could afford it. I also read that the last time one of these surgeries was preformed was in 2004. It is currently restricted by the Food and Drug Administration. The hearts is being pushed to be sold without approval by the FDA.

Works Cited

Bonsor, Kevin. ”How Artificial Hearts Work” How Stuff Works. Discovery. 2011. Web. 19 Seprember 2013.

Free Post 2: Synthetic Proteins

Today I was looking around the internet and I came across a blog that was talking about how bioengineers have discovered proteins that can bond with certain cells in a person’s body. One example was one that can bond with cells in a person’s respiratory system that will render it impossible for the influenza virus to be transmitted into that cell. In untreated systems the flu can attach its self to the outside of a healthy cell by interacting with a certain protein on the outside of the cell. The cell then lowers the pH around the virus and subsequently the bonding protein. The change in pH changes the makeup of the protein and this allows the flu virus to release its genetic material into the cell. This now infected cell is then used by the virus to replicate its genetic material to make more viruses. The bioengineers were able to find a protein in nature that can bind to the same protein that attracts the flu virus. This way the flu has no way to become associated with the cell and release its genetic material. Other ways this can work is by creating proteins that actually bond with viruses. Most of these proteins are still in testing or just theoretical. However, there is a good possibility that if these proteins are successful and practical enough to make, then these proteins will be at the forefront of the war on viruses.

I think that this is a really incredible thing that people can do. We have come far enough to look into our own bodies on a microscopic level and pick out how we get sick in some cases. Then what we do is we fix it. I think that is just fantastic that humans can do that. And although this article didn’t go into the topic, I would think that this sort of treatment would be fairly long lasting and could potentially work continuously for the length of the life of one of these cells.  I am also wondering what kind of problems this protein treatment could potentially cause. I wonder what kind of problems could be caused to the cells. Would this extra protein cause any problems by not facilitating normal cell functions? Why is this protein on the outside of the cell in the first place if not to allow things into the cell? What repercussions would be caused by bonding another protein to it? I am also wondering what kind of delivery method would be used for these proteins. I can see them being an inhalant. In the case of the flu virus in the respiratory system so that is my best guess as to how this would work. I just wonder if inhaling this would cause any irritation in the lungs. If it came in shot form would injecting proteins act differently in other places of the body and cause other problems? 

Works Cited

“Synthetic Proteins Could Serve As Next Generation of Antivirals.” The Biomedical Blog: Engineering. The Biomedical Blog, 8 June 2012. Web. 15 September 2013

Prompted Post 2 Audience And Purpose: Blog- Academic Article

This week I considered style and delivery of another biological engineering blog and an article written by a biological engineering professional. The goal of this exercise is to assess what the writer’s purpose and audience were. To begin I should define what is meant by the author’s style and delivery.  Style is pretty much the writer’s way of writing. A fiction writer would have a much different way of writing when put in contrast to the writer of a technical manual.  The delivery is how the piece of writing is presented. To use the same example as earlier, a fiction writer would most likely present their work in a book or perhaps an audio recording of some celebrity reading the book aloud. The technical manual would most likely be in a small flip book type setup or a brochure type setup.

Secondly, the author’s purpose and audience are also rather simple. The purpose is what the writer planned on accomplishing by writing what they wrote. The fiction writer published their work with the purpose of entertaining their audience. The manual writer put together his piece with the purpose of instructing the operator of whatever the manual was written for on how to properly use the object.
Now down to business for my blog I chose a random post from the front page of the forum. The blog is called “The Biomedical Blog: Engineering”. The post I chose was called “Are cancers a cellular ‘safe mode’? Why do these diseases exist?”.  This post outlined cancers and talked about how they were entirely different from most other diseases. It then got into a new theory about why the disease exists in the first place. This theory has its base in evolution. All life was once one celled and when something in an animal cell breaks it somehow reverts to a primal mode where it tries to outcompete the cells around it without the normal limitations of a normal cell (Simkus).

For the more professional article I decided to use one from my previous post because it fit what I was looking for perfectly. The article was called “Artificial Red Blood Cells” . This article began by describing the many stipulations that were put in place to make sure the “blood” was practical. For instance one requirement was for it to have a shelf life of one year at minimum. Then it described two different types of artificial bloods that engineers have produced. The first one is a chemical called perfluorocarbon. This chemical emulsifies blood and circulates it around the body. The second chemical is called a Hemoglobin-Based Oxygen Carrier. These chemicals bond to oxygen then break down after a relatively short time to release the oxygen to the body (Alberg).

The style of the blog was pretty laid back and used references to computers, obviously aimed at Generation X people. The delivery of this was in a very short blog post. This also implies that it was aimed at a younger crowd of internet savvy kids with short attention spans. I would think that the purpose of this piece was to give people a rundown of some interesting cancer research. I personally would like to know more about the topic.

The academic piece describing artificial red blood cells had a very scholarly style to it. The author liked to use big, sophisticated words to get his information out there. The delivery style was a relatively short report on what the scoop with these artificial blood substitutes were all about.I would wager that this article was for other academic people or other Biomedical engineers, based on the language used. The purpose seemed to be to describe what the capabilities and current drawbacks of these blood mimicking compounds.

Works Cited

Simkus, Glen.  “Are cancers a cellular “safe mode”? Why do these diseases exist?” The Biomedical Blog: Engineering. The Biomedical Blog. 18 July 2013. Web. 11 September 2013.

Alberg, Timothy. “Artificial Red Blood Cells” Biomedical Engineering Program. University of Rohde Island. Web. 11 September 2013

Free Post 1: More Answers

Since I still had some questions left from my first prompted post. I thought I would answer them in this post.these are the questions I asked in my earlier post that couldn't be answered by the textbook I checked out of the library. I am going to do some poking around on the internet and see what kind of answers I can come up with

• Do biomedical engineers work more in Hospitals or laboratories?

After looking into this I found that biomedical engineers tend to work very closely with medical professionals, however, it was unclear as to where they tended to work the most. One site said that biomedical engineers commonly worked in hospitals, research laboratories, universities, and large industrial companies. Working at a university and in an industrial company were both places I had not initially thought of when I first pondered where some one of this profession would work. I don't know why I didn't think of those places it seems so obvious to me in retrospect.

• Have they made artificial blood?

I had heard in passing one time that biomedical engineers had created artificial blood and I have been wondering about it since. It turns out that they have done it. Engineers have made replacements for red blood cells in their ability to carry oxygen around the body. One type of blood replacement is based on perfluorocarbons. These chemicals dissolve oxygen and carry it around the body this dissolved oxygen is then biologically available for cells in the body. Currently these chemicals seem to be a last resort therapy since testing still needs to be done with both major types. to see if there are real negative effects on the body due to their use.

• How do they make prosthetic limbs that can read muscle impulses?

I have found out that this is only one of the few ways a functional prosthetic can work. One of these ways is by attaching cables to other parts of the body. For instance with the loss of a hand a cable could be brought to the opposite shoulder then when this shoulder is moved in certain ways it would pull the cable and make a prosthetic hand move in simple ways. The way I was first interested in was related to moving a limb just through making muscle movements based on what those muscles used to to. What I found out was that this only works if the muscles can still be contracted which is fairly rare among amputations. The prosthetics work by measuring the electrical impulses caused by the muscle contractions picked up by electrodes.the limb can then use a motor to move the limb based on which muscles are flexed.

• What is the history of prosthetic limbs?

I actually found the answer to this question when reading about the answer to the question above this one. prosthetic limbs were rumored to have been around for thousands of years but the first documented ones were from Greece, where they attached iron arms or hands on to the body. These couldn't move but they were a start. This technique was used in Europe through the dark ages. However, the oldest prosthetic ever recovered came from Egypt. A 3000 year old mummy who had a prosthetic toe crafted out of wood and leather. Peg legs and hook hands, as made famous by pirates, were a common treatment across Europe because they were so easy to get materials for. Not many advances really came until the use of anesthetics came about and doctors could make better amputations leading to better ability to outfit patients with prosthetics.

• What amount of the human body could be safely replaced with prosthetics in this day and age?

Albeit, this is a weird question to ask, but growing up being in love with Star Wars I just have to find out how much of a Darth Vader we could make today. Today we have rudimentary and basic forms of prosthetics in comparison to this science fiction example. We have limbs that can respond to existing muscle contractions. We can also make prosthetic organs such as kidneys a hearts and lungs. Currently scientists and biomedical engineers are working on models of brains so that they can make better decisions about brain operations such as severing the corpus callosum in operations to treat seizures in epileptic patients. So, granted you have enough time and money, you can replace almost any part of your body if the need arises.

Sources
Alberg, Timothy. "Artificial Red Blood Cells." University of Rhode Island Department of Electrical, ......Computer, and Biomedical Engineering. University of Rhode Island, n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2013.
"Biomedical Engineer FAQ's." UCONN: Biomedical Engineering Department. University of Connetticut, ......2011. Web. 8 Sept. 2013.

Clements, Isaac P. "How Prosthetic Limbs Work." HowStuffWorks. Discovery, 25 June 2008. Web. 08 ......Sept. 2013.
University of California - Santa Barbara. "Synthetic blood platelets developed."ScienceDaily, 30 May 2012. ......Web. 9 Sep. 2013.

Prompted Post 1: 10 Questions About Biomedical Eginering

This week I asked 10 questions about bioengineering. After I had my questions ready I found a textbook about bioengineering to try and answer my questions. This text book is simply called “A Textbook of Biological Engineering” edited by R.M. Kendi. My questions were as follows:

• What is biomedical engineering?   
• Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?  
• Do biomedical engineers work more in Hospitals or laboratories?
• Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?           
• Have they made artificial blood?
• Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?        
• How do they make prosthetic limbs that can read muscle impulses?
• What is the history of prosthetic limbs?
• What amount of the human body could be safely replaced with prosthetics in this day and age?
• Does a biomedical engineer also help make and design surgical equipment?

I found answers for some of my questions in this textbook. This Text book used more technical jargon that made it rather difficult to tell if what i was looking for actually appeared in the text. I also found that some of the questions I had asked seemed to have some overlapping answers. This reflects my primary interest area within the field of Bioengineering. However, some of my questions were not answered by the text book. This happened for a variety of reasons. Some couldn't be answered because the book was simply too old to have answers to questions that are as modern as they are. Another reason I couldn't find an answer was because it didn't relate to the actual science as much as it did the logistics of the professional field. I think that these answers would be really easy to find by surfing the web and locating professional document that are more current. These are the questions and the answers I found in the book as well as my short responses to what I had found:                                                                                                                                                

• What is biomedical engineering?

“The applications of engineering to two categories: the engineering study of the human body in health and disease, and the development of engineering instrumentation and devices for medical research and practice” in my words this means that it is the mix of studying how the human body works and how to fix it when it breaks, and maintain it in health.

• Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?

No they do a lot more than make people bionic and artificial. Before looking into the topic I thought that a large portion of what bioengineers did was make bionic and prosthetic limbs and artificial hearts and other such things. They also study how the human body works and where stress is on the body during activity. They also make machines that assist medical professionals in their jobs.

• Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?

Yes. In addition to just MIR machines bioengineers make all types of imaging equipment to try to make an easier machine to get good results for medical professionals. Bioengineers also have to study how the medical equipment might affect the body. For instance with a pacemaker for an irregular heart the engineers have to know how the electoral impulses of the body may be interrupted by the presence of the electrical currents produced by the pacemaker

• Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?

It is a mix called Bionics. Bionics is defined as “the study of engineering mechanisms of the biological processes and their applications in engineering” by this specific textbook. To me this means that this is how people can make things to augment the human body.

Citation
Boddy, K., J. M. Courtney, J.D. S. Gaylor, T. Gilchrist, T.G. Grassie, and R.M. Kendi. A Textbook of   .......Biomedical Engineering. Ed. R. M. Kendi. Glaslow: Blackie, 1980. Print.