Poppa Smurf

Last I was in Seattle visiting my parents I had a nice long talk with them about my dad's job. I know what it is he does roughly and quite enjoy following along a bit in his progress. Currently, he is at a company called ProFibrix, which is located in Leiden, the Netherlands, although my dad is starting up a branch of the company in Seattle.

It is a pharmaceutical company that is developing a powder that is meant to help stop bleeding under surgery. The general principal is that most people's blood naturally clots so that you stop bleeding and the body can begin repairing itself. Some people simply lack this natural element in their blood, or under surgery some assistance is needed in stopping the bleeding, which is where my dad's powder comes into play.

Buuut, the US army recently contacted him because they are very interested in this product! I know, BAMF. What the army guy said is that currently the army uses shells from various shellfish - shrimp, clams...etc. - ground up to a fine powder, and apply this to the wounds. The example used was a burst liver. If your liver gets f'ed up, you can't exactly sow it up again because of the consistency of the organ. So they cover it in this ground up shellfish powder, which allows the bleeding to stop and the medic to patch up their body. Currently it takes 20 min for a soldier who gets shot to be temporarily fixed and transported back to where there is a makeshift hospital. I thought this was pretty amazing. But the thing with the shell fish recipe is that they later have to open up the body, and get all the shell fish out of the body again, which increases the chances of an infection, and inevitably, death.

Again, this is where my dads magical powder comes in. The medic will be able to apply the powder, and sow the patient back together again in a couple min, and the bleeding stops! Aaand as a bonus, they don't have to open up the body again to take the powder out. Pretty crazy.

So this is kinda a long story, and I'm just getting to the point now. I was just watching Band of Brothers, and it is trippy to think. Random Joe's, like my dad, are making this shit that is helping/saving lives all over the world on the front line of defence. My dad used to be a doctor in a hospital, saving one life at a time. Now he is developing products that save hundreds of lives all the time! Crazy right!? It is interesting to think about all the different ways there are to do the same thing (in this case, save lives).

The funny thing is though, there are too many people on the planet. We are over populated. Peoples lives don't need to be saved right now, the environment needs to be saved.