This morning, I attended a talk about polyimide for long term neural implants. In estimations of the device lifetime under biological conditions, it was shown that we need to be very careful in using accelerated testing. Samples soaked in saline at 85C did not behave the same way, mechanically-speaking, as samples soaked at 37C. The testing conditions played a larger role than simply speeding up processes that would occur at 37C. I know that this would be even more apparent in testing of my devices, which are known to be more sensitive to temperature than polyimide.
This afternoon I spent some time in Symposium A, in a session focused on diamond for bio-surfaces and implants. A colleague gave a nice talk, and overall I learned more about diamond properties and applications.
The poster session was crowded and busy-- if space permitted, I would definitely suggest providing more aisle space between posters. It can be very difficult to move around and discuss the posters when there are so many people. I did enjoy, however, getting to see what others are working on. I had some good discussions and learned some new things.
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