Sustainable Design

I chose to watch the Ted talk about making better vaccines, because I plan on going into medicine, and the Ted Talk entitled, “Using Nature’s Genius in Architecture,” because my father is an Architect. The talk about vaccines discussed the creation of a new type of vaccine that is a solid, instead of a liquid, a new form that does not need a needle and syringe. With this new technology, a patch containing the vaccine can be placed on the skin, and deliver the vaccine to the patient pain free. The patch also does not have to be worn for long, just moments after the patch has been placed on the skin the antigen has entered the body, and the patch can be removed.  Currently vaccines are widely used in the liquid form, and once synthesized the vaccines require constant cooling which uses a lot of energy, and makes getting vaccines to remote areas, difficult, and sometimes even impossible. A solid vaccine would allow more individuals to have access to preventative medicine, and reduce the amount of energy needed to transport vaccines to where they are needed. Modeling structures after nature creates a loop in which the waste from one process is used to power another. One of our biggest problems is waste disposal, and if we looked for ways to repurpose waste, instead of places to put it we could drastically reduce global warming.  For example, using the compounds that are evaporated out of sea water, in order to make fresh water, as building materials, instead of pumping this waste back into the oceans, which increases the salinity of the water. Increased salinity creates an environment that some species cannot live in, and thus it can cause species to become endangered or extinct. Using a loop type structure instead, means that the compounds removed from the water can be used create new buildings, which means the compounds are not put back in the ocean. Sustainable design is necessary in all fields, so that the planet we call home can be sustained, and become healthier.