Prosthetic Hand: As I am currently typing using only my right hand, the unnecessary wideness of the keyboard is frustrating me. It seems very inefficient to have such a large keyboard, when a smaller, more compact one would be faster to use, especially if you only have one hand. Also, I'm noticing that having to "jump" my one hand around from one key to the next is very unstable, tiring, and tedious, and since the touch pad is located in the middle edge, I can't rest my forearm so that I can reach most of the keys without my whole hand having to jump around. It would be really nice to have one of those "swipe" key boards on computers and laptops, which would be more forgiving to inexactness.
I also got to cook (more like stir soup) and have a meal with this residual limb, and while the eating part wasn't necessarily too hard, the stirring soup part was fairly difficult and dangerous. Due to the thick viscosity of the soup, the pot kept trying to slide off the stove top as I stirred, so I had to use my stomach as a placeholder and barrier from falling onto the floor. As common sense would tell you, the pot was burning hot, so the use of my stomach to stop it from sliding off the stove was minimal and erratic, therefore, I could barely stir the soup. I realized the simple task of stirring was surprisingly strenuous and risky.
Shayn Peirce-Cottler (Stephanie Gomes): At Dr. Shayn's lab, we were introduced to the idea of regenerating injured and diseased tissues, using the precious Bio-Printer. The Bio-Printer uses the cells, like the average printer uses ink, in order to replicate real cell tissue. Although the printing of whole organs is a long ways ahead of us, their lab is on the road to using stem cells to repair eyes and vision, currently being tested on mice. I am inspired by how they are taking advantage of the human stem cells to do tasks beyond what they were created to do. Hopefully, one day, the Bio-Printer will be printing hearts, brains, livers, etc., and saving lives by the thousands.
George Joseph Christ: Dr. Christ was generous enough to personally talk to us about his research on regenerative skeletal muscle, soon to go on to clinical trials. He explained to us that, initially, they do a biopsy on someone to get a sample of their cells, culture and grow the cells, salvage the myoblasts, put them in a scaffold, and incubate them until it shapes into skeletal muscle. This is a bold approach in developing not just an exact replica of skeletal muscle, but a stronger, more regenerative, artificial muscle, which is a very inspiring and innovative step in the medical field.
Thank you to everyone who gave us her/his valuable time!
Rachel
