Abstract
This year, my work has centered around addressing critical issues in the healthcare sphere. As a chemical engineer, our work touches the lives of those around us in unseen ways and calls us to be stewards of the environment as well as the populations we serve. Ensuring we do not allow our morals and values to waver from the responsibility we uphold is essential to maintaining trust. From a technical standpoint, my group explored the sustainability concerns surrounding conventional acetaminophen synthesis, which is traditionally derived from crude oil products and requires intensive resource input, but could be synthesized from waste palm oil husks. From an STS standpoint, I researched the impact of endometriosis on life in the United States to understand whether the disparity in healthcare funding between women and men bears a significant burden on society.
My technical work centered around the design of a biorefinery based acetaminophen (commonly known as Tylenol®) production facility. Tylenol®, a common over the counter (OTC) painkiller, is derived from crude oil derivatives. Both palm and crude oil supply chains are traditionally under question for their sustainability and ethical practices, so tying together these two traditionally “dirty” industries provides a pathway to recycle their byproducts and move towards a more sustainable future. Our work addresses the industry’s current usage of crude oil to manufacture acetaminophen. We found this compelling as a recent patent has been granted to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have developed a pathway for synthesis of these crucial chemical compounds from old palm oil husks (Karlen et al., 2024). Researchers found that it is possible to extract the basic carbon compounds needed to make Tylenol® by soaking these palm husks in a chemical solvent. Our final design compiles a full-scale acetaminophen production plant, utilizing palm oil mill waste streams in Malaysia, converting waste into a saleable pharmaceutical grade product. Using the data outlined in the patent, we scaled up the process from lab to industrial scale and found that our project could meaningfully provide around 5.5% of the global supply of acetaminophen.
My STS project looked more specifically at the interactions between women and the healthcare system that treats them. Women and other marginalized groups often find their pain is often taken less seriously by healthcare professionals. Medical researchers were not legally required to include women in their studies until the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993 was passed, requiring NIH-funded clinical trials to include women and minorities as participants. This historic exclusion has generated an attitude towards sex-based healthcare that persists to this day and can be reflected in the way healthcare research funding is allocated.
My research found that more equitably funding endometriosis research, and more broadly diseases that primarily impact women, represents a crucial step for the United States to begin addressing its long-standing inequities surrounding women's healthcare. Acknowledging the economic social and psychological impacts of neglecting women and research funding will allow us to prioritize funding research in a way commensurate with the burdens these diseases place on society. Properly funding research into endometriosis and other diseases that impact women improves outcomes for not only those who suffer but also for the families and communities they serve. Prioritizing women's healthcare and more equitably funding research into it will create a more just society and can help us build a more equitable healthcare system.
By considering how our responsibilities as an engineer call us to constantly evolve to serve the societies we are members of, our lives and the lives of those we serve can be enriched through technical innovation. Remembering our duties to our planet and people helps us ensure that we act in an ethical manner and are not self-serving. Our actions have real consequences, but those consequences need not be negative. In my technical project, I found most compelling the challenges faced in designing our plant to safely store large quantities of toxic chemicals, ensuring that employees and the public would not be in danger. It was a poignant reminder that my work carries real impact on the communities I will work in, and that our actions and choices have real weight. From my STS research, I am reminded that there are humans behind the science and understand how funding disparities impact not only the women who are underserved, but their communities as well. Through these two projects, I can understand how engineers do not operate in a vacuum, but that mindful reflection and consideration of those around us and our impacts allows us to drive positive change.
