NYU Student Invents Revolutionary Medical Gel Rise of the Accidental Entrepreneur

NYU Student Invents Revolutionary Medical Gel Rise of the Accidental Entrepreneur Andres Rueda/Flickr While most college students are busy discovering the  physics  of beer pong, others are making revolutionary medical breakthroughs. Joe  Landolina, a 20-year old New York University junior has created a lifesaving medical gel  derived  from plant-based polymers which mimic the human  extra-cellular  matrix, a substance produced by the body which  initiates blood clot formation. Landolina has dubbed the substance, Veti-gel. Designed with the purpose to instantly halt bleeding, Veti-gel  bonds to the surrounding flesh and forms a tight seal  upon application. Not only does the gel initiate blood clot formation, but also speeds up the healing process and is effective on major wounds of internal organs and key arteries. Your cells dont fit together cell-to-cell its called an  extra-cellular  matrix, Landolina told the  Metro New York. If you put Veti-Gel into a wound, it recognizes the  existing ECM thats already there and replicates and builds onto it. It instantaneously stops bleeding and is also  biocompatible, so your cells can grow into it and it helps wounds heal faster. Landolina  initially  tested the gel on mice and after slicing their livers and carotid arteries he was  able to  instantly  stop the bleeding. He then began testing on slabs of fresh pork loin  in which  he injected pigs blood; the results of which were so  successful  he recorded a  video  of the experiment and uploaded it on YouTube for the public. In partnership with New York University graduate Isaac Miller, Landolina founded the company  Suneris, Inc.  as a vehicle to shuttle Veti-Gel into the  veterinary  market. For humans there are similar products available, very expensive but similar, but for animals, there is nothing that coagulates blood quickly enough, Landolina explained to  MailOnline, I have spoken to hundreds of vets and heard how in situations where, for example, a spleen is bleeding, they would rather take the spleen out than risk waiting for any of the current products to work quickly enough. So Veti-Gel would be very well received in this industry. Each year more than  140,000 Americans die from trauma-related injuries; excessive blood loss resulting in shock and heart failure are the primary causes for trauma-related deaths.  While Veti-gel is at the moment intended for veterinarian practices, Landolina hopes Veti-Gel will someday be used by the armed forces to treat major trauma victims in the field  and prevent  soldiers  from bleeding out until they can be transported to a hospital. The gel  possesses  antimicrobial properties which mean it’s a safe and disinfecting way to heal a wound, which is especially important for unsanitary war zones. The idea for Veti-Gel came about from a surprising simplistic thought. When I got to NYUs engineering school, I had this idea: What if you could take something that was liquid and turn it solid using chemistry? Landolina told the  Metro New York.  I realized if you could take that and apply it to a bleeding wound; it would turn into a solid mass. I wondered: Could that stop bleeding?”  The trend of the accidental entrepreneur, so to speak, has recently  blossomed  among  college students.  Most recognizably is  Mark Zuckerberg for his founding role in the  revolutionary  social media website Facebook. Rather than  developing  a get rich quick scheme, young entrepreneurs are increasingly achieving success by developing a solution to address a problem theyve experienced personally. The mindset differs between those who build a business around a product rather than building a product around a business. That is how businesses such as  Mint,  Dropbox  and now Suneris, Inc. got their start. With Facebook and Twitter, instantly  promoting  a product to a target audience was never made  simpler, and if technology continues growing in this way, as will the trend of the accidental  entrepreneur.