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IMAGE: In a study posted online Jan. 28 in the journal Science, University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their colleagues describe creating powerful, unipolar electrochemical yarn muscles that contract more. view more
Credit: University of Texas at Dallas
For more than 15 years, researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas and their collaborators in the U.S., Australia, South Korea and China have fabricated artificial muscles by twisting and coiling carbon nanotube or polymer yarns. When thermally powered, these muscles actuate by contracting their length when heated and returning to their initial length when cooled. Such thermally driven artificial muscles, however, have limitations.
A Pfizer representative said the drug developer will use GPS-enabled thermal sensors in every container of vaccines to track the location and temperature of each vaccine shipment.
“These GPS-enabled devices will allow Pfizer to proactively prevent unwanted deviations and act before they happen,” said Francesca Marzullo, manager of Pfizer Global Supply Communications.
But the sensors aren’t on each individual vial.
“These electronic temperature sensors are typically used for large shipments of vaccines that are going from the manufacturer to the places where these vaccines are locally distributed,” Baughman said. “They are not used on individual vaccine vials.”
Threat to vaccines