Team:TU Darmstadt/Project/PnP/AS
Application Scenario
The application scenario is part of our collaboration with Synenergene. Its purpose is to create a realistic implementation of our iGEM project. This is done in a highly dynamic process. As a first step applications for our project were cogitated and investigated. Subsequently the applications were discussed with specialists of the respective field of expertise. If the application seemed feasible, the next experts were approached. If not, we went back to the first step of our creative process. At every stage of the process, financing, laws and patents had to be considered.
All experts we visited are listed here.
Positive feedback loop for the lab
During this process we became aware that the costs of the polymer are crucial for our application. We want to provide inexpensive plastic prostheses for regions with underdeveloped medical care. This is planned to be open source so that all welfare organizations can use our results and only have to pay for material and production costs. In the chemical subproject we tested whether our polymerisation reactions also work without vacuum and argon (as recommended by literature). The produced prepolymers had a slightly lower molecular weight than those produced with vacuum and argon. Normally, one would use the larger prepolymer because it results in a harder final polymer. But the smaller prepolymer proved to be able to build a hard final polymer as well. We decided to simplify our production way and accepted the decrease of the quality. This way we were able to develop a less complex production protocol, where no expensive laboratory equipment and argon is needed. As a result it is much easier and cheaper to produce our prepolymer, especially for underdeveloped countries at which we aimed our application scenario.