By Andrew Trounson, University of Melbourne
Two years of snowboarding, professional kitesurfing and hanging out on the beach isn’t most people’s idea of how medical research breakthroughs are made.
But for Dr Gil Stynes, taking time out from surgical training may have revolutionised the potential for body implants and opened the way for wires, robotics, and even decorations, to be permanently implanted through our 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.
