A new breakthrough in medical 3D printing: researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a method of creating living tissue using 3D printing technology. The researchers were concerned with the limitations of current bioprinting techniques, which are able to print layers of living tissue, but are less able to create the necessary vasculature… Continue reading 3D Printing Sugary Blood Vessels
medical
Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
The Foundation for Orthopedic Reconstruction (FOR) is the culmination of two years of planning that heralds an exciting undertaking for the orthopedic and additive manufacturing communities. FOR was developed with a dual mission: To provide patient-specific medical implants at no cost to those in need and to encourage and fund innovative research within the orthopedic… Continue reading Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
3D Systems Picks Up Bespoke
You may recall Bespoke Innovations, a company dedicated to using 3D printing to produce personalized replacement limbs. The method is to use 3D scanning to prepare a digital model of a remaining limb, then 3D print a mirror image of the model, approximating the original missing limb. Panels are prepared in the correct shape and… Continue reading 3D Systems Picks Up Bespoke
Print a Chocolate Brain!
They didn’t actually print a chocolate brain, rather the team from Inition took MRI scan data from their founder Andy Millins and created a 3D model. Once you have a 3D model, as readers know well, you can do some 3D printing. In this case the team created detailed 3D model of the brain… Continue reading Print a Chocolate Brain!
A 3D Printed Jaw
This was bound to happen: a person receives a transplant of a major body part made specifically for them by 3D printing technology. In this case the body part was the lower jaw of an 83 year old woman from Europe, which had become infected and required removal. 3D scanning techniques captured the precise… Continue reading A 3D Printed Jaw
Neurosurgeons Are 3D Printing
There’s nothing like being able to hold something in your hand and inspect it. You can look from all angles close or far and can use your sense of touch to aid in understanding completely what you’ve got. That’s exactly the approach Hawaiian neurosurgeons at the Tripler Army Medical Centre are taking. They’re able… Continue reading Neurosurgeons Are 3D Printing
Engineering Organs?
Wake Forest researcher Dr. Anthony Atala recently spoke on CBC’s science podcast Quirks and Quarks about his work in the almost unbelievable science of engineering organs. His team is actually able to manufacture several types of biological organs. While this is still at the research stage, it could lead to a future where replacement parts… Continue reading Engineering Organs?
Probing Knut’s 3D Brain
Berlin Zoo’s most famous resident, the polar bear banned Knut, died suddenly this past March. Apparently the bear, famous for controversy surrounding the practice of humans raising bear cubs, had an infection that led to encephalitis and accidental drowning. While Knut is gone, his brain lives on. It’s been captured in 3D by “some… Continue reading Probing Knut’s 3D Brain
Laser Sintered Orthopedic Implants
Some of us require special orthopaedic implants to correct the scourge of “flat feet”, and as such they must be custom-made to fit each person’s foot. You might think this is a perfect candidate for 3D printing technology, which can produce customized implant shapes on demand. This is precisely what EOS has done with their… Continue reading Laser Sintered Orthopedic Implants
Tissue Engineered
While there have been several experiments attempting to achieve the almost unbelievable feat of printing actual human organs, there has been a breakthrough development by researchers at Cornell. The title of their paper tells it all: “Direct Freeform Fabrication of Seeded Hydrogels in Arbitrary Geometries”. Ok, maybe that’s not entirely clear. Here’s how we’d interpret… Continue reading Tissue Engineered
CNN Reports on 3D Printing Human Skin
A report today in CNN describes the incredible work being done to assist injured soldiers. While many types of injuries occur overseas, one of the most common is burned skin – evidently 5-20% of all combat injuries. A new initiative attempts to rebuild skin damaged in this way using 3D print technology. The approach… Continue reading CNN Reports on 3D Printing Human Skin
Human Organ Printing
We ran across a fascinating video showing a bio-printing concept being researched at the Biophysics Lab of the University of Missouri-Columbia. According to Dr. Gabor Forgacs, they will be able to replicate human parts by creating new organs cell by cell in a manner similar to everyday 3D printing. Here’s how it works: “Spheroidal… Continue reading Human Organ Printing
Objet is Certified
Objet Geometries, makers of the powerful Alaris, Eden and Connex lines of commercial 3D printers just announced they’ve managed to receive ISO 13485:2003 certification. This certification means Objet is now able to deliver various types of 3D printing equipment into a wide variety of medical roles. We’ve seen Objet dabble in dental before but this… Continue reading Objet is Certified
Managing Strokes with 3D Printing
Leslie Langau tells an amazing story of how a 3D printer was used to treat stroke patients. Professor Robert Rennaker II at the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas in Dallas has been doing experiments simulating the various disabilities of stroke victims. … Continue reading Managing Strokes with 3D Printing
Bespoke Makes Legs – Beautiful Legs
We’ve been waiting for something just like this: a startup company that takes full advantage of 3D printing technology to mass personalize an item for everyone. In the case of Bespoke Innovations, they supply one-of-a-kind prosthetics for individuals by leveraging 3D print technology from 3D Systems with an artistic flair: The Bespoke process is… Continue reading Bespoke Makes Legs – Beautiful Legs
Objet Organizes a Dental System
3D printer manufacturer Objet has joined dental scanning provider 3Shape to create an integrated workflow solution specifically for dental restorations. The solution links 3D models produced by 3Shape’s dentist-focused scanning equipment and software directly into Objet’s Eden 3D printers. According to Avi Cohen, Head of Medical Solutions at Objet Geometries, the solution: includes special… Continue reading Objet Organizes a Dental System
Print Some Legs and Make Them Whole Again
One of the most interesting applications of 3D printing is medical uses. We’ve written about many different medical applications, ranging from printed tissue, to replacement bones. Today we ran across Alison Lewis’s wonderful post describing her experience encountering custom printed prosthetics for amputees. The procedure was to scan the patient’s surviving leg and through… Continue reading Print Some Legs and Make Them Whole Again
EOS Focuses on Medical Applications
Commercial Laser Sintering giant EOS has been focusing on the medical market recently, using their SLS expertise to produce a variety of solutions. EOS uses several plastic approaches, including laser-sintered nylon for “disposable, customized operating devices such as drill guides for knee and hip replacements”. They’re also developing “PEEK HP3”, which is a “a… Continue reading EOS Focuses on Medical Applications
3D Bone Puzzle: Solved
There’s some interesting work taking place at the British Royal Infirmary, where 3D technology is being used to improve the process of rebuilding highly complex joint fractures. These complex fractures are very difficult to repair due to the myriad of tiny pieces that must be precisely placed back in their original locations in order… Continue reading 3D Bone Puzzle: Solved
3D Printing Aids Biohacking
These days people are fiddling with anything that can be made digital, and one of the more interesting digitizations recently is biology! DNA, those tiny molecular strands that define us all, are increasingly being investigated by, well, hackers. BBC News reports on this phenomenon, which has grown recently aided by technological developments. The idea… Continue reading 3D Printing Aids Biohacking
3Shape Focuses on Dentistry
The most popular software these days is that designed with the user in mind, where all aspects of the software are focused on delivering the function required by the user. When people see such software, they immediately resonate with it and are more likely to use it. There are countless examples of this effect. … Continue reading 3Shape Focuses on Dentistry
Changing Prosthetics Forever
Daniel Terdiman of CNET news writes a long article describing how 3D printing is “changing prosthetics forever”. We’ve written several articles in this area over the past two years, and now it’s become visible in CNET. Terdiman explains how the combination of amputee soldiers’ needs, 3D scanning, 3D printing and individual manufacturing have opened… Continue reading Changing Prosthetics Forever
Dental Scanning
We’ve all been to the dentist (you have gone, haven’t you?) and from time to time we need to get replacement teeth or portions thereof. The dentist makes you bite into rubber or plastic moulds to capture the 3D shape of the required parts and then sends it off for custom manufacturing. But Is there… Continue reading Dental Scanning
Fingers Restored By 3D Scanning
Did you ever take a very close look at your fingers? They are incredibly complex machines, with not only shape and texture, but also motion. Imagine if fate caused the loss of one or more of them? There are solutions today, such as those produced by Didrick Medical, who make a kind of finger-harness that… Continue reading Fingers Restored By 3D Scanning
Medical 3D is Contagious
Objet’s 3D printers seem to be taking hold in various medical applications, according to information passed our way. Here are four interesting approaches: Biorep Technologies creates tools for diabetes researchers and has created a “Pinch Valve” for indexing fluids and avoiding contamination of equipment and fluids, as well as a silicone membrane petri dish Arch… Continue reading Medical 3D is Contagious
Biomedical Solutions Materialise
We ran across an interesting video that talks about Materialise’s ventures into the medical manufacturing space. We’ve posted about medical uses of 3D print tech before, but Materialise specializes in this niche, and have for quite some time. Materialise produces 3D software specifically designed for this market: Mimics, which can transform medical 2D CT or… Continue reading Biomedical Solutions Materialise
Human Brain!
Admit it: you did something wrong sometime in your life and someone told you: “Get a brain!” Well, now you can! A recent .STL upload to the Thingiverse model repository does just that. It’s a 3D model of an actual human brain! Now before you speculate on exactly *how* Jordan Miller obtained this anatomical… Continue reading Human Brain!
3D-Bioplotter
envisionTEC produces a rather unique device called the “3D-Bioplotter”. No, it does not print small mammals. Instead, it produces scaffolds. What are scaffolds? Tissue engineering often requires a “scaffold” on which to grow living tissue, otherwise, we assume, you’d end up with misshapen blobs of living goo. The scaffolds represent the desired final shape… Continue reading 3D-Bioplotter
You Can Put Spares In Your Pocket!
New Scientist reports on a medical breakthrough using 3D printing: exact replicas of finger bones have been produced. Christian Weinand of Berne Switzerland has been testing a new technique in which a 3D model of a finger bone is fed into a 3D printer, and an exact duplicate is printed. By using a suitable print… Continue reading You Can Put Spares In Your Pocket!
More Metal – This Time Saving Lives!
Both ProMetal and Sintef have been working on metal printing processes, quite different from traditional plastics and powders of other 3D print processses. One of the barriers to more common use of 3D printing (aside from cost and print time) is the robustness of the printed objects. If only they could be printed in something… Continue reading More Metal – This Time Saving Lives!
Print Your Baby!
Most women would expect to proceed normally through their pregnancy, but perhaps a few 3D geek fathers would prefer to print their baby instead. Faster, safer, choice of materials, etc. Now it turns out you can actually do this! Well, in plastic or bronze at least. The London Ultrasound Centre in the UK offers… Continue reading Print Your Baby!
The 3D Printer in You
No, we’re not suggesting there’s a ZCorp 510 next to your left kidney. But there ARE 3D printers inside of you. Many of them. That’s a least the analogy suggested by Phun Yan Yan, guest blogger for the NUS School of Computing in his article “Biology for Computer Scientists”. He proposes: This predefined sequence of… Continue reading The 3D Printer in You
Organ Printing Pondered
We encountered several reports dealing with the fantastic idea of printing human organs using 3D printing technology. The premise is to deposit cells in the appropriate shape. Various prototypes have been attempted, including liver tissue, branched vascular trees and cartilage. The bad news is that the experts predict it could be decades before such… Continue reading Organ Printing Pondered
3D Tissue Printer Video
We bumped into a rather interesting video explaining and actually showing the process of using a 3D printer to deposit live cells! The video explains the main issue with tissue deposition: lack of a scaffold causes the deposited cells to lack structural integrity; they flop all over. The 3D printer enables them to… Continue reading 3D Tissue Printer Video
Can We Print a Human?
That’s the question being considered by Duncan Graham-Rowe of New Scientist. The premise is whether the components that make up each of us can be replaced using modern technology. Replacement bones are discussed, and as we’ve talked about before, they are a very good candidate for 3D print technology: they are relatively small 3D objects… Continue reading Can We Print a Human?
The Tooth Fabber
This one is so obvious we didn’t even think of it until mjarkiver wrote up his recent experience at the dentist. We’ve all been there before, where a section of a tooth is to be replaced. Typically, the remaining surface on the tooth is prepped by leveling and smoothing. Then a mold is obtained by… Continue reading The Tooth Fabber