Team Venus:Meeting 7 (more decisions)

Team Venus met this past Monday to discuss the findings from our research and to make more decisions regarding our device. The main piece of information that changed our design was that the acetylcholine receptors are on the sodium channel. This means that when the receptors are destroyed, the channels are no longer usable. So, we decided to go back to our original idea in which we insert tubes that will act like the sodium channels. We also decided to connect the tubes to the working channels instead of the motor neuron’s axon terminal. We did this because it would be easier for our tubes to know when to open and close if they could just copy a working channel instead of trying to calculate it through the action potential. Also, the tubes will be implanted at or close to the existing inactive channels so as to not mess with any other part of the membrane that may have other functions. In addition, we know the tubes should be .3 to .5nm in diameter and they will probably be made out of carbon, but we are still considering other options. Also, since our tubes need to attract sodium ions, we found the two regions on a sodium channel that make it selective only to sodium. We will incorporate these two components into our tube design so they will attract the sodium ions. I think we have finally decided on the overall design of our device, but there are still details to be sorted out. To sort out these details we assigned more research topics:
-How to locate the existing inactive sodium channels—Audra, Brian
-How to put the tubes through the membrane—Harry, Victor
-How to know when the working channels are open and how to power our device—Thomas
-How to keep the immune system from attacking the tubes—Kathy
-What materials to use—Alheli