fmp research 1

{15/03/14}

THE SCIENCE MUSEUM

During my Easter Holidays I decided to use my time wisely and planned various Museum, Galleries and places of interest that relate to my final major project. Firstly I went to the Science Museum to explore if there was information about the skin. Science has envolved so much that it has affected the skin care and make up industry as we now have advanced equipment to treat problemic areas and other problems everyone faces.

AGING GAME

The Science Museum has many activites for both adults and childrens to educate them with mini games and displays, I discovered this aging game which 'predicts' how someone will look like in fours stages of aging;- baby, now, adult and elder. The game simply needs the person taken in order to generate a clear image for all stages, I tried this game with myself and my friend Shasmin and this is our outcome.

Scientists have taken 3D scans of many faces. They grouped the scans by age and averaged them, noting the changes as people grow older. This software applies those changes to your face.

Humans are remarkably good at guessing the age of a person just by looking at a face. Research suggests that we look at two key features to reach a decision: the shape of a face, and the colour and texture of the skin.

As you age your eyes and forehead become smaller compared to the size of your head, whereas your chin becomes larger. Your skin gets darker and wrinkly, your face fatter and lips thinner. Your hair might also become lighter and in some men recedes.

Although I don't think it's an accurate representation as I could clearly see how the baby structure is very westernised and so it didn't work on our asian faces but it does show a rough idea of how aging works and also tells how the features develop has we age,  it was very informative and learnt more about skin in the terms of aging.

3D PRINTING THE FUTURE

I also visited the 3D Printing the Future exhibition which highlights the idea of 3D Printing and how nowadays it is used, I was very interested in 3D Printing because I was hoping to perhaps use this method to create a physically copy of my skincare line and so it was a great opportunity for me. I think having a physically product will help my project come to life and its a method I have never tried before.

"As well as covering the basics, we decided that our exhibition should focus on the incredible things that 3D printers can create – such as replacement body organs and teeth, that could make a difference to the lives of our visitors.

3D printers have been around for decades, so what’s changed? In recent years the patents on simple 3D printing technologies have run out. 3D printers have become available to more people in the form of affordable consumer models, or even as open source plans freely available on the internet.

In July we began collecting 3D printed stuff for what has been known as ‘an explosion’, our ‘mass display’, ‘the wave’, ‘the wall’ and (my favourite) a ‘tsunami of objects’. The display contains over 663 objects – the largest number we’ve ever acquired for a Contemporary Science exhibition, thanks to generous loans, donations and the enthusiasm of the maker community.

Among the amazing ‘wave’ of objects you can see a display of 150 miniature 3D printed people – visitors who volunteered to have themselves scanned in 3D at the Museum over the summer holidays. Look closely at the wall and you may spot actress Jenny Agutter reading her script, model Lily Cole and BBC Radio 4 presenter Evan Davis - with his arm in a sling!"

I came across thie slideshow which I thought it would be very interesting as part of my research, I only thought of using 3D Printing to present my skincare line in a physical form but I learnt that it can also be inco-operated into the human body to replace skin for various reasons, it was a suprising concept and I am glad I visited this exhibition.

SKIN PRINTERS

A research team at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are using 3D printing technology to print skin cells to heal burns.

John Jackson leads research team at Wake Forest:

"We use a special 2D printer to print 'inks' containing different kinds of skin cells. If you had a severe cut or burn we'd scan it to find out how deep it is - different kinds of skin cells are found at different depths. We'd use the printer to apply layers of the right cells to cover the wound"

John Jackson says the skin printer could reduce healing time from right to three weeks.

BURNING ISSUES

James H Holmes IV is a burn surgeon. He hopes 3D printing technology could revolutionise the way burns are treated:

"Skin grafts are used to treat people with severe burns. Healthy skin from another part of the body is removed and transplanted over the burn. This is an extremely painful procedure that can leave significant scarring. Printing new skin over a burn would be far less painful for my patients."

SECOND SKIN
John Jackson sees real benefits for patients with severe burns:
"A skin printer would be important for people with severe burns who don't have enough healthy skin left to do a skin graft. If used quickly it will reduce the risk of the burn would getting infected. And I can use the patient's own cells in the printer, so the new skin won't get rejected."

A patch of skin one-tenth of the size of the burn will grow enought skin cells for skin printing.

SOLDIER'S SKIN
Burns accound for about 10% of casualties in warzones. Skin printers are quite small and portable. They could be used for soldiers in the field who can't get to a hospital easily.

The team of Wake Forest are working with the US Department of Defense to bring this technology yo soldiers who need it within the next five years.