Category: Visuals

Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned using biomedical engineering from an adult cell. This experiment took place at the Roslin Institute, at The University of Edinburgh. Professor Sir Ian Wilmut led the research team to clone a cell from a Finn Dorset Sheep, which proved to be successful when Dolly did not share the black markings that her surrogate mother had. 

This experiment created a multitude of possibilities within biology, while also raising several questions concerned with the ethics of cloning (Roslin Institute, n.d.). 

Dolly was cloned using the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, or SCNT. For this, the nucleus of a somatic, body cell is transferred into the cytoplasm of an egg cell that has its nucleus removed. The nucleus from the somatic cell replaces the original nucleus from the egg cell to become a zygote (fertilized egg). With this method, extinct species could be resurrected, such as the wooly mammoth with an elephant surrogate (Stocum & Rogers, 2009). 

Dolly died in 2003, but she is now located in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. 

The Life of Dolly. (n.d.). Dolly the Sheep. Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html

Stocum, D., & Rogers, K. (2009). somatic cell nuclear transfer | Definition, Steps, Applications, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/science/somatic-cell-nuclear-transfer 

  

For the medical device technical module, I decided to do a scalpel because after completion of my undergraduate degree I would like to pursue a career as a dermatologist and take part in dermatological surgeries.

For my second technical module assignment, I decided to create a telephone booth because you see them all around Scotland.

For my technical module product that was related to healthcare, I chose to create an antidepressant. With mental health being such an important topic for the past several years and talking to random people on the street surveying them about their country’s mental health services, I knew I wanted to create this. Partially to help raise awareness that taking medication is okay and sometimes one person’s pathway to getting better. The other part is because my personal onshape skills have a long way to go. This was the perfect physical object related to healthcare for me to make with my current pool of skills.

I started by determining the antidepressant that I wanted to make, amitriptyline. The pill is typically blue or green and pretty small, intended for daily use. I picked my measurements in onshape, added the text to identify the amount of milligrams for my model pill, and printed it. The print was a little bit of a failure, as it was so small that the engravings did not translate well into the physical model, but that’s okay. I am proud of my pill, and that I learned how to curve edges and use different onshape functions, with a little help.

 

The not quite-a-failure, failure pictured above. Physically, the size was correct! The edges did not curve as pictured above but seeing as it was such a small print, that is understandable.