• Question: what is the most interesting thing you have invented/made/helped made and what made you decide to help make that?

    Asked by ellen to Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Todd, Zach on 7 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by Frogface, mazzy7642, summer_lemonade21, 439arth42, WeeRabFaeTheCornerShop, Emma692738, Elayna, 878arth34, Thing1 & thing2, 669arth38.
    • Photo: Sophie Cox

      Sophie Cox answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Hi Ellen,

      Good question!

      A few months ago a colleague and I came up with a really cool idea of how to ‘copy’ a material that our bone cells (called osteoblasts) produce to repair our bones when they get damaged or diseased. We have recently been able to show that we can make this material in our labs and that when we ‘feed’ it to bone cells it helps when to grow and make stronger bones. The next step is to turn this into a therapy that a doctor could inject into a patient with diseased or damaged bones that aren’t healing properly to help fix them. To protect our idea we have just filed for something called a patent, which essentially stops other people from copying your idea.

      I guess what inspired us to make that material was by understanding all the cool things that the cells in our body already do to try and keep us healthy and repair us when we damage ourselves or get diseases.

    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Hi Ellen,

      I’m not much of an inventor – more an explorer or things.. so I’ve found that culturing certain types of bacteria in a biofilm (a collection of many different types of microorganisms, think dental plaque) with the fungi Candida, leads to a situation where Candida invades into the tissue models, taking the bacterial cells with it, and causing loads of cell damage.

      The invention would come later on where we can develop a new therapy or treatment for this, but we need to do this groundwork first!

      Why are we doing it?
      Its a disease/infection that affects 60% of people that have dentures (and thats about 1 in 4 people in the UK!!), so understanding and treating this, will make a lot of people much better off!

    • Photo: Ana Gallego

      Ana Gallego answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Hi ellen,

      I managed a team that made the first breathable prosthetic liner in the market.
      The idea came from one of my colleagues, that realised that amputees sweat a lot because they have less skin to perspirate and less muscle so they have to do more effort to walk.
      So we managed to make a traditional prosthetic liner, which is a cushioning sock that is worn on the stump that helps protect from compression and shear – just like an insole – but put a lot of holes on it with lasers to that the skin is protected and dry at the same time.

      A success!

    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Hi Sophie,

      I think the most interesting my team has invented is a new hand brace that soon will be available in local chemists, NHS, boots, etc. that will enable people with hand problems to improve their current quality of life.

      The thing that helped me decide to be part of this invention was realising the current problem and the current gap. There is a need for this technology!

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