The University of Southampton

Category: Practice blogs

Engineering Replacement Body Parts

Posted on by

Hello, my name is Evan Masters, I’m 19 years old and am in my second year of Biomedical science. In what little spare time I have I enjoy running, gaming, gym and procrastinating. In terms of societies, I’m a bit lazy, though I do play esports for Southampton University and am playing in the qualifiers for a £10000 tournament tonight (02/02/2023), so wish me luck.

Me (Pictured left) and Professional Rocket league player Kyle “torment“ Storer (Pictured right), he may be a millionaire from videogames, but I’m taller.

Why did I choose this module? First and foremost, this actually looks fun and interesting, especially when my other option was Protein Structure and Function. This also is mostly assessed by coursework which really helps with the stress of exam period. I also might be able to understand some amount of the module, unlike Protein Structure and Function, I really didn’t want to do that module.

I find stem cell research really interesting, initially I was going to do an integrated masters with placement in Scotland in stem cell Embryonics, but alas I did not have a chemistry A level which was required. My brother is also missing a lung so growing him a new one would give me irreputable leverage over him and strengthening my position as favourite child.

Other than that, I tend to enjoy learning outside my field so doing an interdisciplinary module, especially one involving engineering aspects, should be an enjoyable time :).

Lego- building blocks for life?

Posted on by

This is David Aguilar, he was born with Poland Syndrome which is a condition that affects the chest muscles, causing them to under develop at birth. Blockage of blood vessels in the womb can lead to this and other conditions such as Brachydactyly.

David Aguilar with his Lego prosthetic arm.

David had an interest as a child for Lego which lead to his development of his prosthetic arm. He used Lego Technic to create his model the ‘MK-1’ (iron man reference) which involved motors and his adaptation of fine motor movement with fingers and pressure sensors.

David is still evolving his prosthesis and creating new updated models using cables to contract to simulate muscle contraction. There is a book, documentary and many more articles about Davids story, including his youtube ‘Hand Solo’.

This video explains more about Davids story from himself

As a Lego employee myself it is amazing to see the extent to which Lego can go and not only be a bit of fun for kids. It is amazing how life changing it really is and the possibilities there are with it.

I believe Lego technic could be explored more in the world of prosthesis not only for function but to help introduce the topics to children to allow them to explore the world of STEM and possibly aid children who have conditions where prosthesis are an option, Lego may make this seem less daunting and allow them to explore this whilst having fun.

Ria Hill

Why am I taking Engineering Replacement Body Parts?

Posted on by

I do natural sciences, and this is a compulsory module in the third year. At first I was a bit confused why I had to do this module, since it doesn’t have a lot to do with what I usually study. In fact, up until a couple of months ago I thought the compulsory module would be ‘Life in the Cosmos’ which I was really excited to do. However, after attending the introductionary lecture, I am beginning to appreciate that this module will draw from a variety of disciplines and will give me insights into other subjects. I am particularly interested in the ethics lectures since this is not something that I have studied before.

In Natural Sciences I am free to choose modules from a variety of courses- for me that’s mainly biology and marine biology. Right now I am doing a project looking at the protein prophenoloxidase in crustaceans, which is part of their immune system.

One type of replacement body part that I have seen in practice is lens replacement surgery which my mum had a few years ago to treat cataracts. It was really cool to watch how someone who had relied heavily on glasses and contact lenses for over forty years suddenly be able to have the freedom to be able to see clearly without anything. Even something as simple as washing her face without having to worry about getting her contact lens wet has made a huge difference to her life.

lol hi

Posted on by

dont rlly know what to write…anyways I’m so tired right now. Karaoke was fun last night WOOOOO!

why did i pick this module? probs coz its 40% exam lol (sike it actually sounds cool)

my hobbies are gaming, art, dance (street dance) and volleyball. basically any sport sounds fun i guess. LOVE mgmt and their music…low-key getting into nirvana at the moment.

insta: @ma1u.jpeg

my guy got a fresh trim.
LMAOOOOO

‘comonmuvyabadi’

slay

Posted on by

i am writing this hungover how am i supposed to live laugh love in these conditions

cafe parfait is kinda mid ngl

anyway, this module seemed interesting, which is why i picked it! i do biomed and this seemed like a really interesting extension of the content i’m currently learning

did you guys know there’s a protein named after sonic the hedgehog? that’s pretty cool

the sonic hedgehog protein is a signalling molecule that helps regulate embryonic morphogenesis in all animals

a bit about me: i like tennis, reading and music, mostly indie. i’m currently trying to listen to all of radiohead’s discography in chronological order; i’m up to a moon shaped pool

cheese.

i’m realising this post is just non sequitur after non sequitur i’m sorry lmao

Example/Test 2

Posted on by

Targeted drug delivery has always been a keen interest of mine. Having seen first hand the effect of chemicals such as chemotherapy drug being delivered to the whole body rather than just the tumour, I am excited by the possibility of being able to prevent these drugs from affecting healthy tissue. Microbubbles have been used widely in targeted drug delivery and contrast imaging. However, their relative instability is a key disadvantage. Enter the nanodroplet: a particle of diameter ~200nm with a perfluorocarbon core and phospholipid shell. The smaller size allows them to be more stable and less likely to be removed by the immune system.

Structure of a nanodroplet


It has been shown that the superheated stability of nanodroplets enables them to undergo acoustic droplet vaporisation (ADV) to become a microbubble. ADV occurs due to an applied ultrasonic sound wave. Sound waves occur due to changes in pressure in the surrounding media. Areas of increased pressure occur as a result of the particles being compressed together. Areas of decreased pressure occur due to the particles spreading further apart in a phenomenon known as rarefaction. Rarefaction results in a decrease in pressure in the nanodroplet. If the pressure drop is enough then the required vaporisation temperature will reduce to the surrounding temperature allowing the nanodroplet to vaporise into a microbubble of diameter roughly 2.5-3.5 times the diameter of the original nanodroplet. If the peak negative pressure is large enough, the resulting microbubble is able to undergo inertial cavitation where the microbubble diameter doubles then violently collapses due to the inertia of the surrounding fluid which increases delivery of gases dissolved in the encapsulated perfluorocarbon by either increasing “leakage” from the microbubble or increasing permeability though the endothelium.

Diagram demonstrating what is meant by rarefaction

Overall, I feel nanodroplets are a promising new technology in the field of targeted drug delivery. They have the unique ability to solve the challenges posed by current microbubble therapy without completely redesigning the wheel.

Example / Test

Posted on by

“The Future of Writing: AI-Generated Blog Posts”

Have you ever wondered how a computer program could write a blog post? Well, you’re reading one right now! This post was generated by a language model AI developed by OpenAI. The model was trained on a massive corpus of text and can generate human-like writing based on the prompt it receives.

AI Generated image

The advancement of AI in the field of natural language processing (NLP) has opened up new possibilities in writing and content creation. AI-generated content can be used to create articles, reports, and even books, freeing up time for human writers to focus on more creative tasks. AI can also be used to generate new ideas, research information, and even edit existing text.

However, it’s important to note that AI-generated writing is not perfect and still requires human editing and oversight. The language model is only as good as the data it was trained on and may produce content that is incorrect, repetitive, or lacks coherence. Nevertheless, AI-generated content has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce and consume information in the future.

In conclusion, the development of AI in writing and content creation is a testament to the advancements in technology and the possibilities that lie ahead. While it’s still in its early stages, the future of AI-generated content is promising, and it will be exciting to see how it continues to evolve and impact the writing industry.