Betsy Skrip
(Massachusetts/USA)




  
  Basement Membrane Proteins by Betsy Skrip, 2008
 18" x 24", digital Inkjet print


ARTIST STATEMENT

While research shows that inhaled nanoparticles can cross from the lungs to blood, little is known about how such translocation occurs or how nanoparticles may affect human health.  "Basement Membrane Proteins" is a stylized portion of a model created at Rochester Institute of Technology to study nanoparticle movement through the human respiratory system.  To the best of our knowledge, it is the first model of a complete respiratory pathway -- one that extends from where oxygen enters the airway to where gas exchange occurs with the blood.  The protein models depicted were constructed to scale in Maya based on available published data and are being used by RIT's Mechanical Engineering Department in computational flow dynamics analyses of fluid flow and particle movement.  Better understanding of how nanoparticles move through the respiratory system will aid future research into how nanoparticles affect the human body and how they may be utilized in future medical applications.
 
http://www.betsyskrip.com


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