Question: Will the material that you put in the body hurt some people?

Judith McCann answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hopefully not! We are designing the material so that it doesn’t react with the tissue or cells around it in the body. There are chemicals which have been reliably tested and are known to have no side-effects on everyone and we are trying to use these to design our material. They have been cleared by governing bodies (who decide whether or not the material can eventually be put into people)

The tests involved in making sure the material will have no bad effects or pain in people is a really long process-which is why it takes so long to make new materials or medications. First they are tested with some cells, to see if the cells survive. This is done a lot of times, with cells on/in/around the material.

Then the material is tested in animal tissue (not living animals) some people in my group are using cows tails for this, which has the same structure as a human spine, this is done to make sure the mechanical properties are the same in the tissue and in the material.

If the materials shows it is not harmful then eventually they are tested on living animals and then human trials, but this is not something I would be involved in I think