The University of Southampton

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Welcome to UoSM Engineering Replacement Body Parts

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HI EVERYONE!

My name is Sofia and I am a second-year student of Biomedical Sciences.

I have decided to enrol in this module because I am particularly interested in prosthesis but also other relevant applications of new technologies in medical settings.

I hope I will make new friends who will enjoy the module as much as me. If you need any help, do not hesitate to keep in touch!

Sofia

Girl sees herself with a “normal-looking” ear for the first time

I have recently watched this video about a prosthetic ear that was implanted on a girl with a disease called “Microtia”, which basically completely deforms the shape and hearing abilities of the patient. Her first reaction while seeing herself for the first time with a new “normal-looking” ear is thrilling. This video reminds me the huge power that engineering has to completely revolutionise people’s lives.

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BUCS- what’s the fuss about?

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BUCS: British universities and college sport

If you’re involved in BUCS you’ll know it takes over your every Wednesday. Train twice week. Lose. Drown your sorrows at the social. Repeat.

What makes it worth it? The people you meet and the friends you make along the way.

BUCS history

Founded in 1918, with the first athletics meet taking place only a year later. In 1922, new sports were introduced such as, football, hockey and swimming. Until 2008, BUCS was not unified under one governing body. It consisted of the UCS (University and college sport) and the BUSA (British University sport association) which became BUCS on the 31st of October 2008.

My sport- Netball

Introduction

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The concepts and assessment methods in this module are very different from my degree course which is Physics. Last semester I studied nano-physics this really interested me. I thought it would be interesting to get the chance to explore other disciplines than pure physics as many of the limitations of nano and micro physics are only apparent when looking through the lens of another subject, like many imaging techniques being destructive due to high energies required or needing thin or conducting substrates or very low temperatures due to thermal noise.

Engineering Replacement Body Parts

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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 :).

Introduction

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I’m Florrie, I am an exchange student from New Zealand. My university in NZ is called Victoria University of Wellington. I am doing a whole year here in Southampton. I study Biomedical Science and am in my final year. Although I live in NZ I am originally from the UK, I moved to NZ when I was 5 years old. I have also lived in Sydney, Australia. I live in Wellington, which is the capital city. New Zealand is a beautiful country, it has a similar land mass to UK but only has a population of 5 million. One of the coolest things about New Zealand is that we have serval active volcanoes. I have attached a video below of things to do in New Zealand.

The topic I am most excited about in this module is stem cells and research ethics. I am looking forward to learning about how stem cells can be used to help cure diseases and aid in medicine. It will be interesting to learn about how ethics affect the work that can be done and how they are used in regulating research. I have done some lab work with Henrietta lacks cells back at my uni at home which was really interesting seeing how they develop depending on what chemical they are exposed to. It was also comparing the growth of cancerous stem cells to normal ones.

Henrietta Lacks Cells

Lego- building blocks for life?

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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

Practice blog about myself

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My name is Yifan, and the course I take is Business Management. There are two main reason for my choice of this module. First, limb prosthetic interests me the most from all the biology aspects of the module. Mainly deriving from the fictional works of all types I was exposed to. Moreover, thinking of the benefits of a limb prosthetic that is able to mimic the full functions of a real limb is beyond my imagination. The type of pain of a person’s daily life brought by accidents or genetic issues is imaginable. So if a seamless technology become available to offer to those in need, it would bring the world a ton more joy. Secondly, the ethical theory application to the module interested me as well. This is mainly because of the ethics module undertaken last semester. It would be interesting to make that connection and see how different theories debate with each other when applied to different situations. For example, if I am correct about the main content of the ethical part of this module, which is about consent, this can be applied to many ethical theories such as Kantian’s and JS Mill’s. Also, it would be interesting to see how some of the practices can be justified or condemned based on deontology and utilitarianism views.