"Smart Sutures" By: Katie Myers

Connection/Question: Have you ever thought about turning simple, every day objects into something "high-tech"?

Researchers have developed coatings that transform simple threads into high-tech “smart” sutures that can monitor body temperature, pH, and other aspects of a wound that's been stitched together. Doctors might even take advantage of the suture’s capillary action (its ability to wick fluids from one place to another).

Colored solution (representing a drug-laced fluid) was painted on the left end of a “smart suture.” It quickly soaks throughout the thread, bottom-to-top. This process might could one day help doctors deliver drugs to a healing wound. (Mostafalu et al/Microsystems & Nanoengineering 2016)

DISCUSSION: What are some of the ways you know if a wound is infected?

BRAINSTORM: How could we alert a person or caregiver of an infected wound? (Think-Pair-Share)

TIME TO APPLY!

*We are going to fill out a non-fiction graphic organizer. Each of you will fill your graphic organizer out individually. Please highlight IMPORTANT facts in the article!

ASSESSMENT: Discussion/Journal Entry

Please write down two things that you learned about the article and why they are important.

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