I listened to two Ted Talks about medicine and sustainable design. One was called “A Needle Free Vaccine Patch” by Mark Kendall. It was about a Nanopatch that can by pushed onto the skin via a spring loaded device in order to deliver vaccines. It has thousands of tiny projections that would be covered in a dry-coat of vaccine. These projections would pierce a few layers of skin to leave the medicine where immune cells reside. This significantly raises the effectiveness of the vaccine.
The Nanopatch overcomes some of the downfalls of syringes like needle-phobia and transferring blood and infections from person to person. Not to mention they are cheap to make and reusable. I never realized sustainable design could be applied to medicine. Throwing away needles after every use is not sustainable. The Nanopatch is sustainable because it is reusable and cheap to make. It would be nice to see the entire medical field strive to be more sustainable.
The second Ted Talk I listened to was called “Your Health Depends on Where You Live” by Bill Davenhall. He said that the environment in which you live has a big impact on your health. Pollution and bad air quality could lead to increased risk of heart attack. Physicians do not include your travel history in their records although it could help measure risks of future ailments. GPS can easily track our positions and phone apps can track it. There are also records of how polluted the air is throughout the States. With this information, doctors could add another tool to their belts.
This Talk made me think that sustainable design doesn’t have to just apply to objects. It can also apply to systems and way of doing things. Therefore, my way of studying, learning, and reaching my goals can all be more sustainable. Sustainable design can be applied to a lot of things- big and little- in life. I will certainly try to use it to my advantage from here on out.