[HN Gopher] High schooler invented color-changing sutures to det...
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High schooler invented color-changing sutures to detect infection
Author : webmaven
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-03-28 00:35 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| gameswithgo wrote:
| This is super cool but my first thought was that human skin
| already changes color to detect infection. Or gets swollen, or
| leaks pus, etc.
| todd3834 wrote:
| Yes but ideally this will catch it before the infection
| advances to that level.
| spoonjim wrote:
| _Light colored_ human skin changes color a lot. As a dark
| skinned person, almost none of the skin color indications work
| for me.
| rin72ka wrote:
| I'm a dark skinned person and my skin color changes.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| 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?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| llaolleh wrote:
| I love this story, especially her attitude about wanting to find
| out for herself and not take anyone else's word.
|
| That curiosity and questioning what others have overlooked goes a
| long way towards discovery.
| cup wrote:
| What do her parents do?
| eat_veggies wrote:
| I know you're asking this to try to downplay her remarkable
| achievements. But her parent is a single mother [1] who's an
| insurance agent [2].
|
| [1] https://wsspaper.com/65234/news/qa-with-science-talent-
| searc...
|
| [2] https://dailyiowan.com/2020/11/18/iowa-city-west-senior-
| dasi...
| JamesSwift wrote:
| 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?"
| eat_veggies wrote:
| I hope that's the case! And if it is, then I apologize to
| cup
| Leparamour wrote:
| The whole affair seems to be politicized too much to not
| question the truthfulness of the claims presented as facts.
|
| 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...
| nanna wrote:
| > The whole affair seems to be politicized too much to not
| question the truthfulness of the claims presented as facts.
|
| Do you realise your comment sounds a lot like, 'she only
| got this far because she's a young black woman'?
| eat_veggies wrote:
| can you explain to me what it means to be politicized, and
| which claims you find questionable?
| zapdrive wrote:
| Really? You think her being black, or a woman, played no
| part at all in getting her all this exposure?
| nanna wrote:
| 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.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| 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.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| I'd prefer a young black woman getting exposure over the
| usual case of "a parent published their work in their
| kids' name to get media hits"
| nickphx wrote:
| How could you possibly know that?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Slandering other commenters like this is not acceptable
| behavior.
| neolog wrote:
| 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.
| blubbity wrote:
| 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.
| osmansec wrote:
| 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.
| mberning wrote:
| 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.
| ta988 wrote:
| Especially with blood around in case the suture leaks or there
| is a bubble of blood...
| mattkrause wrote:
| Cotton is not a great suture material: low tensile strength
| when wet and it'll absorb/wick bodily fluids, which sets the
| scene for an infection.
|
| Catgut and silk were traditionally used, but there are tons of
| synthetic ones too.
| merqurio wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1]:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090142275A1/en?q=Infec...
| hatmatrix wrote:
| > 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."
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| 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.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Wow I was skeptical before I clicked the link but that's not
| even similar. That's the exact same thing.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| The general idea is obvious: a (literal) litmus test.
|
| The details are what make it work, including availability of
| cheap test materials.
| kumaarkgp wrote:
| Patent infringement. Is it? In India these stunts are very
| common, kids make copies of cool stuf to add in their uni
| application. (US uni application)
| edimaudo wrote:
| Found out about this on NPR. I wish her more success.
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