By the time they reach their senior design courses, Drexel Engineering
students are accustomed to finding solutions to common problems in uncommon
places. This is especially true for Karli Akin, Angelique Rudi and Rosalie
Vitale, a trio of Materials Society and Engineering majors collaborating on
a project to turn the shells of crustaceans into a lifesaving new fabric.
Akin, Rudi and Vitale brought all of their experiences to the table. In her
pre-junior year, Vitale worked at Dutch State Mines (DSM), a biotech
research company, testing the kinetics of polymer membranes. She also
traveled to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as part of an international
STAR Scholars project, where she tested the durability and porousness of
membranes. Akin also spent a co-op at DSM as a biomedical manufacturing
researcher, and most recently worked at Johnson & Johnson in new product
development.
The three are creating fibers out of a solution made with a key ingredient
from the shells of crustaceans called chitosan. Chitosan is a biodegradable
compound found in the outer shells of crustaceans that has antibacterial and
antiviral properties and is hypoallergenic. A gel created from the fibers
can be spun into fabric for wound dressing. Using a new method of spinning
fibers which preserves nontoxic acids, called touch-spinning, the group can
evaluate the ability to process these fibers and turn them into usable
materials. Touch-spinning allows fibers to form from a chitosan solution and
would eventually create a bandage that is both eco-friendly and safe for
sensitive or allergy-prone patients.
In addition to using their own strengths, the team has worked with Drexel’s
larger Natural Materials and Polymer Processing group headed by
Caroline Schauer, PhD, Margaret C. Burns Chair in Engineering and Interim Associate Vice Provost
for Faculty Advancement. “It’s been great to collaborate with and learn from
the rest of the NMPP group as well,” Akin said. “[They] have all played a
huge part in making sure we have access to the resources we need to
successfully carry out project tasks and objectives.”
The open-endedness of senior design was much different from classroom
experiences, the team said. The increased flexibility that comes with an
open-ended research project is full of opportunities to problem-solve. “The
senior design experience has certainly been a great way to gauge how
projects for research and development-based roles are executed and function
in general,” Akin said. The team’s diverse experiences on co-op brought the
opportunity to innovate.
“I think we’ve all learned the value of collaboration in a research and
development setting,” Akin shared. “The three of us each have our own unique
research experiences from co-op, so having the opportunity to bounce ideas
off one another has greatly helped in cultivating the improvements and
innovation we’ve achieved in our overall design process.”