(From the University of Delaware)
Health care workers in the United States suffer an estimated 385,000 needlestick injuries per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Up to 90 percent of these injuries occur in the hand and can expose surgeons, nurses and other health care staff to infection from blood-borne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. The average cost of a needlestick injury to a hospital is $2,500.
A team of researchers from the University of Delaware and Thomas Jefferson University has received a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore the use of non-viral gene therapy to enhance bone repair.
Researchers at STF Technologies LLC, a spin-off company from the University of Delaware, are working to develop a puncture-resistant surgical glove, according to the company’s co-founders Norman Wagner and Richard Dombrowski.
STF Technologies grew out of federally funded research by Wagner, the Alvin B. and Julia O. Stiles Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD. Wagner co-invented shear thickening fluid (STF) armor technology — a smart material that can change from a liquid to a solid in response to ballistic and puncture threats — in collaboration with Eric Wetzel at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland.
Under mechanical stress or “shear,” tiny ceramic particles in the STF are driven together, causing the material to behave as a solid. Adding this STF to a fabric creates a nanocomposite material that can harden rapidly to form a temporary protective shield before becoming flexible again. The technology is already under development for use in multi-threat body armor employed to protect soldiers, police and first responders.
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via UD spin-off company is working to develop puncture-resistant surgical gloves.
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