Hope everyone is doing well and is safe and healthy. I would first like to start out this week’s blog by giving a big shout out to Dom Tommarello and John Berkley of Splash Shield for their generous donation of nonwoven material that we are using to make our masks. While we haven’t mentioned this in a few weeks, we are continuing to make masks and donate to those who need them. We continue to improve the process and are getting better at making these devices. Our biggest issue is being able to get the supplies necessary to make the masks. Due to generosity of Dom and John, we will continue to pass along their good will. As I’ve mentioned before, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at info.biosurfaces.us if you need a mask. It may take some time but we will look to fill any order. We have developed a procedure for all members of the team to make a mask so hopefully we will be able to fulfill the orders at a faster pace.
You may be wondering what is up with the title of this week’s blog. I was meeting with our son Cam, who is responsible for all things marketing for the company including getting me to write this blog. Cam is also responsible for evaluating what areas of the country (and the world) are visiting the website. This is one of many things that can be determined by examining the data that comes in from the analytic software. One area that was glaring to me was that we have had visitors from every state in the country except North Dakota and Oklahoma as you can see on the analytics image. We have even had visitors from Alaska and Hawaii. It was a glaring void that made me wonder. What do we have to do to get a little love from these two states? I figured I would see if
our loyal viewers (again thank you for reading this blog and for the nice comments) can help us get someone from these states to visit the website. Since I am a scientist, it is a little experiment that I am conducting to see the power of communication. I will be sure to let you know if we will finally be able to say that we are viewed by all states. We are proud to say that we have been viewed in over 68 countries including Nigeria (no – not by a prince promising us money). I also want to remind you that we will be creating webcasts over the next several weeks related to our technology. We will look to bring surgeons, interventionalists, partners and researchers under one roof. We may also try to see if we can get a patient’s prospective. I will provide you the date and time that we will debut this new medium.
Our new interns have begun to settle into their new surroundings and are already diving into various areas that the company is working on related to the NIH cell culture plate program. The first several days are mostly spent reading different journal articles and internal documents so they can begin to understand our technology. I am always amazed and impressed at how much these students know coming in. I was never as smart as these folks when I was their age. Our job is to take this knowledge and provide guidance as to how to apply it to answer specific questions. They are already making such progress. This first week flew by. The NIH program is one of the main focuses of the company as we are beginning to wrap up cell culture plate production for the contract and are starting to prepare to mass produce these plates. We are also expanding the technology to our other Bio-Spun™ materials. I keep eluding to some potential news coming. I am hopeful that will come soon on a couple of fronts and will be worth the wait. Finalizing this program will begin our first venture into manufacturing. We are excited for the opportunity that will hopefully translate into manufacturing medical devices (i.e. perianal fistula plug, NuSpun™ Vascular Graft). We also continue to develop our other technologies, from the drug-eluting vascular graft and electrospun suture to chambers used to hold cells. We also have some other research ongoing that is in its early stage. We will disclose this work once we make additional progress.
Continue to stay vigilant and keep social distancing, wear a mask where social distancing is not possible to protect yourself and those around you and frequently wash your hands. These small little changes have been shown to work and are not too hard to do. When these simple steps are not followed or when people believe that this is just a hoax (yes – there are people who do believe this which is a little frustrating to say the least – I guess my nurse daughter has been treating and sadly losing a lot of hoaxes over the past several months) and don’t bother undertaking these simple steps, the virus can continue to spread as shown by the flair-ups across the country. These flair-ups do not happen right away, just like you don’t immediately catch a cold right away when you come into contact with someone. Massachusetts, for example, is seeing a slight increase two weeks after Memorial Day weekend. States like Florida, that reopened quickly, are seeing a 40% increase in cases. We need to stay vigilant even when it is nice out. My friend Lisa, who is a scientist, said it best when she said that this virus has no time table, no brain to figure out how to attack a person, or any bias as to who it infects. It is just waiting for the time when we drop our guard.
Please stay safe and have a great weekend!
Matt