Recently a team led by MIT Professor Robert Langer and Jeff Karp, created an adhesive tape that could become an important tool for surgeons in the near future.  The tape could serve as a replacement for staples or sutures in surgical processes as it is both biodegradable and can stick in wet environments without to much trouble.  Problems previous tapes had involved their ability to to expand and contract with the muscles or organs they were applied or their inability to stick in wet environments.  Another important aspect of this tape is that it does not produce dangerous toxins as it slowly dissolves while the wound or incisions heal.  The tape could be used to patch holes, or even wrap around intestines in gastric bypass procedures.

Now where do the geckos come in? Well the tape uses Gecko skin to…JK. Actually the team followed the princile behind those of the Gecko’s paws. The surface of the tape has microscale bumps that give the tape a few advantages, and over this is a layer of glue that allows it to stick in wet environments. The product has been tried on pig intestines and proved to work very efficiently. This product could be a great tool in the future for surgeons as it will allow them to insert this tape on small incisions where suture could be extremely difficult.

Around the starting of the school year I joined TSA, where students from around the nation compete in various technology oriented projects. The competitions start at regionals, and individuals who place there make way to state level competition and then finally enter nationals. Well like always I joined the as many competitions as I could, and also like always started work the last minute..literally. For regionals I had to compete in Medical Technology, Biotechnology & Agriculture, and Promotional Design and phone calls from my group members and the school adviser started to roll in. It was Sunday afternoon and the event was to take place on that Thursday. The next five or so days were probably the busiest days of my life. The first two days I sat up all night researching and designing presentations for our Medical Technology competition. Our topic was Obesity, and I decided to throw together a few nice boards in photoshop. Designing the boards turned out to be the easier part of the project, finding someone that did oversize printing with understandable rates became the problem. Fedex Kinkos were charging around $50 per board and almost every other place I drove to wouldn’t print over 11×17.  Well in the end I finally found a small place in the corner of downtown that got the job done.  The next day and a half I spent throwing together another design for promotional graphics, and I really want to say thanks to my partner for doing most of the work for Agriculture & Biotechnology.

Even with our last minute efforts all the projects placed.  Medical technology won first, while the other two hit 3rd place, allowing me to go to state competitions for all three.

Here are the medical technology boards I threw together, most likely I am going to redesign and redo the entire project for state competitions.

How can the first two months of 2008 be described, well with one word - BUSY. Before I even get started describing them I wanted to say sorry for my disappearance, and I also have no intention of closing down my blog. Next I really wanted to thank newfbrand and eggmag for writing the reviews on Medilogy. Even though the reviews are quite short they gave me enough inspiration to come back and start round 2 of Medilogy as the next phase of my education (College) is about to begin. Now on to the tales of the last two months.

January and the new year started off pretty exciting, but the quickly came to an end. Around January 2nd I remember one of my close friends telling me how doctors suspected his mother may have cancer, and reports would come in two days. Well it turned out she didn’t have cancer and we are all thankful for that. A day or two after that my uncle passed away in New York after being in a coma for almost 10 years. His condition had been critical for the past 2-3 days and we received no notifications of this from the hospital’s staff. My father flew out to NYC the next morning and I don’t remember much from those days.

After that the two C’s began to dominate once more - College & Calculus. I sat online most of my nights filling out as many college scholarships as I could, the biggest reason being that one of my college choices was one of the most expensive colleges in the area. I’ve been accepted to one of the colleges of my choice and currently awaiting acceptance from another Honors College. excitement

Alright so all in all those are some of the biggest reason’s I haven’t had time for the blog lately, but once again I’ve got another boost of energy to keep it going. It should pick up more as I begin shadowing a few local surgeons and enter college which is only months away!

And just want to thank anyone who reads my blog, as you guys are much of my reason to keep going.