Jacqueline Brisbane
Glencliff High School
Chemistry Teacher

Dr. Prasad Shastri – Biomaterials Lab

Imaging Agent for Liquid Bone

This summer I helped developed an imaging agent for liquid bone.  Liquid bone is essentially a polymer. The polymer can be used to (1) help heal a fractured bone (2) enlarge the lip or nose (cosmetic surgery) and (3) restore teeth. A photoinitiator is added to the polymer.  The polymer is then injected into the area that needs to be treated. A light (blue) is then shined on the area that has the injected polymer. With the curing of the light, the polymer hardens.

To help the doctor/dentist determine the progress of the polymer, I had to help determine an imaging agent for the polymer.  Gadolinium lactose, barium sulfate, calcium sulfate, and sodium sulfate where added to the polymer to determine which would serve as the best imaging agent. The barium sulfate was the only one that shown up on x-ray.  Because of scheduling conflict, we were not able to determine which would show up best on the MRI. Hopefully by the end of July, I will be able to include the results in this report. 

Because of the lack of access and danger of using an x-ray and MRI with high school students, we wanted to come up with an imaging agent that could be used in the classroom. Fluorescence worked beautifully.  The materials and equipments needed to carry out this procedure (from start to finish) are very reasonable.  Although I have not tried my module yet, I think my students are going to love using blue light to restore their teeth.