I have just spent a few days in Boston at the American Chemical Society National Meeting. I was there as the co-organiser of a symposium entitled “The Polymer Science of Everyday Things” which, as the advert says, does exactly what it says on the tin! This is the third time out for the symposium and this time it reflected the theme of the overall conference and the focus of much of the local activity and concentrated on the use of polymers in medical applications. There were several presentations on stents – those small structures inserted into cardiac arteries to widen them. The development of the original metal stents, which could be inserted via what are euphemistically called “minimally invasive procedures”, the addition of a coating to prevent fouling, the move to a different coating on the outside (to aid adhesion and cell growth) and inside (to prevent fouling), the further addition of "containers" within the structure to provide therapeutic delivery of drugs for some time after the insertion and, most recently, the move to bio-resorbable materials so that the stent eventually disappears, is textbook evolution of materials use.

There were also great presentations on the use of polymers in diapers/nappies, bandages (both the ones we take from granted and the newer liquid ones), contact and intraocular lenses – the latter with some truly unsettling eye operations but great polymer science – and a weird one on the use of a silicone collar around the stomach entrance to restrict eating!!

My own personal high-spot was chairing a session which included urinary catheters, condoms and personal lubricants!! Any suggestion that scientists don’t have a sense of humour could be dispelled by a video of that session.

The conference was held at the new Boston Conference Centre. This, and the hotel next door, were in the middle of an obviously “to be developed” industrial wasteland. This meant that, on the first day, when the morning session finished and everyone went to lunch, the realisation that the internal food arrangements were insufficient meant that thousands of chemists were wandering the streets of Boston looking for lunch. Needless to say, the sessions after lunch were not well attended. Planning is a wonderful thing!

David