2) Hoping to make a little extra cash before
his summer break in Las Vegas, Louie Lobo is at the blood plasma
donation site on Yale Ave. Seeking to impress the cute phlebotomist
(blood sampling technician), Louie begins to wow him with his
factual knowledge of biomaterials. Help Louie impress the
phlebotomist.

2a) “For instance,” Louie says, “did you know
that the blood collection vials you are using are not truly blood
biocompatible?” Using the article from Ratner, give one reason
that Louie makes this statement.

2b) Seeing that the phlebotomist is truly
impressed, Louie continues. “Yeah, in fact, early blood collection
vials were coated on the inside with paraffin wax to prevent blood
clotting. Of course, using paraffin makes it so that proteins tend
to denature on the inside surface of the collection vials. And
those proteins change over time, you know.” What is Louie
talking about? What is the wax doing to the surface energy of the
glass? What is “denatured,” and what does it have to do with a
protein’s primary, secondary, tertiary, or quaternary structure?
How can irreversibly adsorbed proteins be exchanged?

2c) Louie realizes that the phlebotomist is
truly impressed with his brain, and keeps going. “Not only that,
but the irreversible adhesion of proteins to substrates is dictated
by thermodynamics.” What does Louie mean by this statement?
What does it have to do with paraffin wax? What does it
have to do with the –R group side chains of amino acids?