ON the uni- pabilities ng, the ( A&M’s tron, nu- .tion an- nd data environ- boratory, used in IHE BATTALION Wednesday, January 28, 1970 College Station, Texas Page 5 Repairing Broken Bones A&M Engineers May Aid Surgeons > > .) rJ BONE STUDY AT A&M Dr. Douglas Bynum, Texas A&M structural engineer, looks over an array of horse bones used in a study to design better plates and fastening devices to repair badly broken bones in humans. Texas A&M engineers think they can help surgeons do a bet ter job of repairing badly broken bones. Specifically, the engineers be lieve they can design better plates and fastening devices to hold damaged bones together. Until now, this has been strictly an orthopedics function. “If you want to look at it cold ly,” Dr. Douglas Bynum points out, “the bone is just another structure.” Being a structural engineer, Dr. Bynum decided to explore the field of internal fixation plates— objects actually screwed to the broken parts of the bone in com pound fractures. He discovered very little research has been con ducted in the field. Dr. Bynum has been joined in the project by Dr. W. B. Ledbet ter, a civil engineering professor specializing in materials research' Dr. C. L. Boyd, veterinary medi cine and surgery professor, and D. R. Ray, an engineering grad uate student. Baylor College of Medicine is cooperating in the project. “In casual conversation with various medical people, I discov ered engineers could play an im- Deansgat_e 950 POEYFARRE STREET. NEW ORLEANS, LA. 70150 TOWNSHIRE / BRYAN. TEXAS 77801 FOR THOSE WHO KNOW THEIR Courses and Buy Books Now ... REFUNDS — On Books You Can’t Use Up To One Week After Semester Begins Loupot's North Gate Houston 1970 Murder Rate Over Twice That of 1969 HOUSTON .) — Houstonians were getting killed at the rate of more than one a day and homi cides continued at more than dou ble 1969’s record-breaking pace Tuesday. Three persons were shot to death. Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies investigated a strange death late Tuesday near the Harris County- Fort Bend County line. The body of a middle-aged man, unidenti fied, was found in his car, shot through the chest with a small caliber bullet. James Brantley, 16, was shot and killed Tuesday night outside an apartment house in the climax to an argument. Police held an other participant in the argument, also 16. Earlier, a lone robber killed the owner of a drive-in grocery as the two men fought in front of the store. Normal Alford was shot three times in the chest. His wife told police the gun man came into the store and forced her husband outside at gunpoint. When she tried to help her husband, she said, the gun man broke away and began shoot ing. Gene Gaines, 19, was killed and a teen-age girl critically wounded Tuesday. Gaines was shot twice in the back of the head, apparently as he slept at his home. The girl was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound behind her right ear. Mid-Term Bargain Half Price SALE Campus Directory are your . contact lenses more work than 1 they’re worth? Now 75 c per copy (including revised student section) Available at Student Publications Dept. Exchange Store portant role in the orthopedics field,” Bynum recalls. He stresses, however, some of the ideal engineering solutions do not lend themselves to medical use. One of the A&M researcher’s first conclusions was that present bone plates are “overengineered.” Almost all of today’s plates, Bynum notes, are made of stain less steel and are too rigid. Ex periments have shown the bone is 15 times more flexible than the plate. Bynum and his associates are experimenting with reinforced Fiberglas as a possible superior substitute. In addition to being more flexible, Fiberglas is twice as strong as stainless steel and less expensive. A Fiberglas plate was implant ed in a horse’s leg last month to check for “body rejection.” “He (the horse) is doing beau tifully, so far,” Bynum reports. Horse bones are being used exclusively in the research proj ect because of their similarity to human bones. Severe restrictions are place on experiments with human bones. “When we get to ‘people prob lems,’ we’ll be working directly with Baylor Medical,” Bynum emphasizes, “but we can get a bunch of these problems check ed out with animal experiments.” As for the screws which hold the plates to the bones, Dr. By num thinks they may hold too well. “The fastening devices now strive for the maximum holding force,” he explains, “but when they fail, the bone shatters.” A&M researchers are exploring a solution in which the fasteners would “give” under less pressure, but the resulting damage could be more easily repaired. A&M officials are hopeful the project will receive federal as sistance, but so far it has been totally supported by university funds provided by the state. . COMING FEBRUARY 1ST . 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