Tricking the Skin

Watching crustaceans at the beach got Dr Stynes thinking about the possibilities for mimicking an exoskeleton in humans by creating medical devices that could attach through the skin without the risk of infection.

Intravenous lines, catheters, and prosthetic rods are all implanted through the skin but are at constant risk of infection because our skin refuses to adhere to them, leaving a gap open to bacteria. It is a fundamental barrier to the development of permanently implanted robotics to replace lost limbs and for reconstructing body parts with biomaterials such as metals and plastics.





“One of the holy grails of biomaterials research has been working out a way to get skin to grow onto and attach to metals and plastics without the risk of infection. It looks like this design and technique may have solved the problem,” says Dr Stynes, who is researching his PhD at the University of Melbourne. “It could pave the way for fully implantable robotics, prosthetics, catheters, intravenous lines, and the reconstruction of surgical defects with artificial materials.”

Read the article by Andrew Trounson, University of Melbourne here: http://mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/news-and-events/breaking-the-skin-barrier