The sutures (手术缝线) were changing colors - quickly. First light purple, then dark purple. This was what Dasia Taylor had hoped would happen. She had the idea as a high school junior after she read about "smart" sutures that use technology to detect wound changes and then send information to a smartphone. Taylor's first thought was: This is cool, but what about those who won't be able to afford this technology?
So she set out to create a more cost-effective solution for an honors chemistry research project. She found it in beets (甜菜). Taylor developed a surgical suture additive from the root vegetable that changes color when an infection is present.
Human skin is naturally acidic, and "when our wounds are infected, our pH level increases from five to eight or higher," Taylor said. "I found that beets also change color at that point. So I put two and two together." In the lab, she observed that the beet-treated sutures change from light purple to dark purple when the pH level changes from healthy to infected, Taylor said. "All of these things were happening, and I was like, this is amazing and my guess was right," Taylor said.
According to the World Health Organization, 11 percent of patients in low- and middle-income countries who have surgery are infected in the process and such infections complicate 1.9 percent of surgical procedures, though it added that the number is likely to be higher. Taylor's project earned her a great international award. But the girl said that for her, the research has never been about the award. "I consistently classified (归类) my project as where equity meets science," Taylor said. "When you're doing research like this, you have to think about the lives you're going to impact. You have to make sure the people you're affecting will be able to have access to it."
