Glaucoma Gals

 this week mainly consisted of preparing for the final presentation and final notebook  Some research on different silicone housing can be done  -  Plastic Injection Molding | Custom Low-Volume Plastic Parts (protolabs.com) -  Molded Rubber Parts - Aero Rubber - Molded Rubber Products -amazon (cheap)  Amazon.com : silicone mold making -  ProMed Molded Medical Silicone Component Manufacturing Company (promedmolding.com) (biocompatible) - Silicone Biocompatibility for Medical Components - Miwo (miwosilicone.com) (biocomptable) -DIY silicone molding??  Make Your Own Silicone Molds - Easy Mold Making (Mould) - For Candle Or Resin Molds - Bing video

 This week was completing our prototype and testing. We have a general design right now of an epoxy oval with 4 tubes. One tube is connected to the syringe and the other three contain resistors of varying levels. We did a lot of work on trying to vary the resistance this week. The design that we are going to go with is resistors of the same diameter but different length. In our larger prototype, we have different length epoxy cylinders in the tubing. We made those cylinders by cutting open a silicone tube and filling it with epoxy. Once it was dried, we cut it out of the tube and cut it into three different lengths. For the smallest tubing, we are using different length of polyester sutures as our resistors. For both scenarios, this ensures that the shape of every resistors is the same.  Here are the new square molds Kierstin created and I filled. These are much smoother than the previous ones, which will allow easier drilling, and a cleaner look overall. Video of Kierstin and I testin

  From the above pictures:  In class, we had our ethics presentations In the lab- from the pictures above- I worked on drumeling and drilling epoxy housing for the valves. Also tried to cut the epoxy into similarly shaped resistances, but this did not work super well. Figured out drill sizes that would work for the nose tubing and drilled into the housing.  Meeting with Brinkley to discuss how we could put the rolled tape in one of the epoxy molds to try to eliminate the drill portion. Also talked about our frustration and she helped me write and edit my email to Dr. Gordon.  Met with Dr. Gordon to discuss class issues and resolved them.  Met with Brinkley back in the lab to clean up my workspace and drumel out a cube housing for her to epoxy  For the above pictures in the lab:  I tried to find cutters to cut the oddly shaped valve into a square and tried to drumel the sharp parts, but I did not think it could be salvaged to use safely. I created new square molds for the epoxy which wi

 This week consisted of attaching the second pressure sensor and ensuring both sensors are working. I met with Dr. Rickard to understand how to convert voltage readings on a multimeter to pressure readings which are needed for our lab experiment. During class time, Alex and I took different reading of voltage at different heights for each sensor and were able to convert voltage to mmHg. Second Pressure sensor connected Both multimeters connected to Elvis II and both pressure sensors Later in the week, I worked on my ethics presentation.  

 Presentation:  A Brief History of CRISPR-Cas9 Genome-Editing Tools (bitesizebio.com) Ethics in Science - PMC (nih.gov) cm-2016-principles (ama-assn.org) C:\Documents and Settings\pwilliams\Desktop\CODE OF ETHICS 2003-IN V8 2-SIDED-PMS294.PRN.pdf (uiowa.edu) CRISPR’d babies: human germline genome editing in the ‘He Jiankui affair’ - PMC (nih.gov) Background: -First identified in 1987 by Japanese scientist, Yoshizumi  - A clone of an unusual series of repeated sequences was accidentally made while testing a gene responsible for alkaline phosphatase  He Jiankui: Scientist that developed the first human babies that had edited genomes  Known for the twins are now resistant to HIV infection due to the DNA editing that he did on their embryo  Edited the DNA in an embryo and implanted it back into a women to then give birth to twins that have the edited DNA  The PROBLEM: Could have lead to a very poor outcome  CRISPR has still not been tested enough for it to be safe  Was not thinking about t