At first I was kind of skeptical because detecting pH has been done for decades (and quite easily) - but her methodology for keeping the dye on the suture was really smart just in general. One thing that would make this really viable is if she could make the color change a bit more extreme. Personally red and dark purple are really hard to tell apart for some people, especially for detecting something as a surgical infectionl.
I agree. Very cool. Having a more dramatic color change would be a must to take it to market and reduce/eliminate false positives. I bet there are specialized chemists that they could work with on a second iteration.
Well, that's a interesting coincidence. The prizewinner in the OP also has a skin color that can't show infection by color.
I wonder how many other medical techniques are predicated on assumptions like the color of skin that don't work for everyone, and conversely how many medical challenges are literally invisible to most doctors.
The problem has been known for some time, but has only been front page news recently. I don't know of any technological improvements to come of this yet, but I hope people are working on it. It might be exactly the kind of thing a bright high schooler could figure out.
Really the question is how did she do that? If she had parents in the field (probably a common scenario), we don't need to know much more. If it's something else, then we can ask if those conditions can be generalized.
How do you know the question is intended to downplay her remarkable achievements? I first interpreted the question along the lines of Mozart or Tiger Woods and didn't think about it uncharitably until you brought it up.
So what? Why does this bother you? Young black women are hugely under-represented in STEM fields, so this is a nice story of someone breaking through that and it gets coverage.
The insinuation is that she doesn't deserve it, that she was only awarded this because she is a young black woman. Are you really placed to judge this? Do you know the ins-and-outs of the award criteria, what the other candidates were like, have you concertedly worked through your anti-black prejudices? No offence but I doubt all three.
I think their point is: is this getting coverage because it’s actually novel and impressive, or is this relative simple but getting attention because of her race/gender?
In other words: Is the coverage a good signal for whether one should be impressed or not.
It may have merit on inspiring others, particularly underrepresented groups, but I think that’s only adjacent to the parents question of: is this impressive in a vacuum, or just getting traction because of her gender/race, which presumably the parent doesn’t find to be important.
Accusations of “anti black prejudices” may be wrong if their actual point is that the news is prejudicially covering otherwise non newsworthy work primarily because of the gender/race of the creator.
I agree. The problem is that if this is undeserving news coverage of a nonnewsworthy accomplishment, it’s misinformation and has all the problems and baggage associated. It’s incorrect info pushed as truth, in connotation or definition, and that builds up.
I also competed in the sts this year, so i do know the criteria very well; i can tell you with certainty that there were far more impressive and exciting projects in the top 40.
I took the question as "thats impressive for someone this young, are her parents in related fields so shes been exposed to this stuff or is it all self guided?"
Neat in theory but what do you do about dried secretions like blood that color or conceal the suture? Or when the suture is covered by some antibiotic or barrier cream?
Indeed, not every solution works in every possible case. Fortunately the person in the OP and many others still have time to perform research on these problems.
Similar ideas are already patented [1]. I appreciate the simplicity of her approach, but I'm not sure if she would be able to create a business. I hope her the best.
> Although the above-referenced indicators are clas sified as solvatochromic, it should be understood that the present invention is not necessarily limited to any particular mechanism for the color change of the indicator. Even when a solvatochromic indicator is employed, other mechanisms may actually be wholly or partially responsible for the color change of the indicator. For example, acid-base or proton donation reactions between the indicator and microbe may result in the color change. As an example, highly organized acid moieties on bacteria cell walls may protonate certain indicators, resulting in a loss of color.
Patents are difficult to defend in that it has to specifically mention the new idea that you are trying to patent and not just refer to the general idea. However the statement above might be sufficiently close?
On the other hand, I just noticed its status as
"Abandoned."
Courts are very reticent to overturn a patent even if it is completely bogus. There are many of these bogus patents, the worst has to be a guy who patented "driving LEDs via their I2C interface" which is on par with patenting driving a car.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 94.3 ms ] threadCatgut and silk were traditionally used, but there are tons of synthetic ones too.
I wonder how many other medical techniques are predicated on assumptions like the color of skin that don't work for everyone, and conversely how many medical challenges are literally invisible to most doctors.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/16/9472260...
The problem has been known for some time, but has only been front page news recently. I don't know of any technological improvements to come of this yet, but I hope people are working on it. It might be exactly the kind of thing a bright high schooler could figure out.
[1] https://wsspaper.com/65234/news/qa-with-science-talent-searc...
[2] https://dailyiowan.com/2020/11/18/iowa-city-west-senior-dasi...
Also, pH-sensitive dyed wound dressings have been in development for at least a decade by now, at the Fraunhofer institute[1] in Germany.
[1]https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/11/dre...
Do you realise your comment sounds a lot like, 'she only got this far because she's a young black woman'?
The insinuation is that she doesn't deserve it, that she was only awarded this because she is a young black woman. Are you really placed to judge this? Do you know the ins-and-outs of the award criteria, what the other candidates were like, have you concertedly worked through your anti-black prejudices? No offence but I doubt all three.
In other words: Is the coverage a good signal for whether one should be impressed or not.
It may have merit on inspiring others, particularly underrepresented groups, but I think that’s only adjacent to the parents question of: is this impressive in a vacuum, or just getting traction because of her gender/race, which presumably the parent doesn’t find to be important.
Accusations of “anti black prejudices” may be wrong if their actual point is that the news is prejudicially covering otherwise non newsworthy work primarily because of the gender/race of the creator.
Remember this isn't Gab, folks?
That curiosity and questioning what others have overlooked goes a long way towards discovery.
[1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090142275A1/en?q=Infec...
The details are what make it work, including availability of cheap test materials.
Patents are difficult to defend in that it has to specifically mention the new idea that you are trying to patent and not just refer to the general idea. However the statement above might be sufficiently close?
On the other hand, I just noticed its status as "Abandoned."