Medical marijuana is one of the most promising plants in medical science today. However, the use of medical marijuana is not widely accepted by many people and countries. This problem created an opportunity to some innovative companies. Israeli company Syqe Medical created a more acceptable medical marijuana inhaler using a 3D medical printer. This device delivers precise dosage of marijuana thus physicians can overcome the problem of unpredictability of prescribing medical marijuana.
This inno
Researches have been made on advancing the applications of 3D bioprinting. Thru this healthcare professionals are able to address complicated injuries and illnesses.
The process of 3D bioprinting is utilized to generate tissues or living cells that help sustain growth and cell function within the printed cell or tissue. Patent on bioprinting was filed last 2003 and by 2006, it was then approved. It paved the way to more researches and encouraged hospitals and other research groups to co
3D printing is now very useful in the field of medical science as many medical researchers are tapping the use of 3D printing technology to streamline different medical procedures. The researchers from the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science from the University of Central Lancashire developed 3D printer filament that consists of various drugs.
Called the drug polymer filament, this small pill is used in place of conventional thermoplastic filaments like ABS and PLA. The researchers have m
A kidney transplant is a very sensitive operation and patients need to be compatible so that the organ recipient will not reject the donor organ. 3D printing paved the way for surgeons to be able to transplant an adult kidney to a toddler recipient.
In Northern Ireland, a 3-year old toddler is the first child in the world to survive a kidney transplant using adult kidneys. The toddler suffered from heart failure which had dire consequences on her kidneys as they were robbed of oxygen. Instea
3D printing is no longer confined to making prototypes or scale objects. In fact, this technology is aggressively being utilized in the medical world thus 3D bioprinting was developed. The advantages to using 3D bio printed models is limitless.
Aside from being able to print accurate and precise models of tissues and organs of different patients, 3D medical printing is now used in making functional body parts. One of the most interesting uses of 3D medical printing is in the field of prosthesis
At the Peking University Orthopedics Department, Dr. Liu Zhongjun spearheaded the project for a 3D printed vertebral implant for a 12 year old boy needing an orthopedic spine surgery.
Minghao, 12 year old boy patient, experienced a neck injury while playing soccer. After subsequent examinations, the he was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer known medically as Ewing’s sarcoma. In the second vertebra of the spine was a growing tumor that needed to be removed and replaced. This portion of the bone
In the field where innovation can help save lives, 3D medical printing is a very promising technology that can empower healthcare providers and medical researchers. The use of 3D printing technology has been around since 1980, but has only recently been used in the field of medical science.
There are many established applications of 3D medical printing. It is commonly used to manufacture hearing aids. In fact, there are more than 10 million 3D printed hearing aids that have been produced and di
3D printing technology has made it possible for people to create human organs in reality. There are now many 3D printing companies that have invested in technology to improve the field of medical technology. One such company is CELLINK which created a universal bioink aimed at printing live and functional human tissue models.
Each day, more than 20 patients die while waiting for an organ transplant. With the revolutionary bioink from CELLINK, it is possible to manufacture “donor” organs artif
Researchers from the ARC Center for Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) of St. Vincent’s Hospital and University of Wollongong in Melbourne, Australia are using 3D printers to study the human brain. The researchers are using a 3d printer to print living brain tissues using stem cells.
Professor Jeremy Crook from ACES is working with living brain cells printed in a bioprinter to study conditions like epilepsy and schizophrenia. With the 3D bioprinting technology, they also aim to
Testing of different medical treatments always involve experimentation in small laboratory animals. The challenge, however, is that testing drugs on animals require state-of-the-art telemetry systems that can help monitor biological processes in real time. This is especially true when monitoring cardiac functions among laboratory animals.
Researchers from the University of Western Ontario were able to create wireless as well as implantable systems that can help monitor cardiac functions using
Many scientists are taking 3D bioprinting to the next level by creating medical devices that are unlikely to be conceived 10 or 20 years ago. In a research led by Dr. Michael C. McAlpine from Princeton University, they have developed a 3D bioprinter that is capable of creating a five-layered contact lens that can display information and, at the same time, detect different health problems of the wearer.
Funded by the United States Air Force, this particular contact lens can help equip pilots mon
Cancer research is very important in helping many people who are battling with cancer. However, the difficulty with cancer research is that it is challenging to test drugs while using live human tissues. A recent breakthrough done by the University of San Francisco had led to the development of a new technique called DNA Programmed Assembly of Cells.
Postdoctoral fellow Alex Hughes explained that the technique is all about creating biological equivalents of the LEGO bricks which can grow cel
Nerve damage causes delayed responses as well as total loss of sensation. The traditional way of repairing nerve damage is to suture the affected nerves but this procedure often results to more risk of damage. Moreover, surgical procedures to treat nerve damage has limited design capabilities thus it can only treat a few range of injuries. The problems concerning traditional method of repairing nerve damage has led researchers to try other things. Researchers from the Sheffield University are lo
Science and technology still finds it difficult to mimic biological structures and systems. Biological structures and systems have the ability to adapt to their environment through reacting to different stimuli like humidity or the amount of sunlight. For instance, plant structures interact with the seasons based on the atmospheric input which leads them to change their structures in order to adapt to their current environment.
Although difficult to mimic, researchers from the University of St
3D printing has become an indispensable tool in the medical industry. It has encompassed numerous applications from creating simple customized medical tools, surgical models, implants, to orthopedic casts.
This technology continues to expand as researchers develop many intriguing yet effective devices using a simple 3D printer. One such innovation introduced to the world recently was the 3D printed braces intended for patients with scoliosis.
3D Systems, the South Carolina-based comp
The creation of stem cells using 3D printers can bring a lot of changes in the world particularly in the field of medicine. One important application for stem cells is drug testing. Millions of laboratory animals will be spared if 3D printing can create stem cells.
Collaboration between the researchers from Tsinghua University in China and Drexel University in Philadelphia developed a way of growing embryonic stem cell structures. To create the stem cell structures, researchers used an ext
Little is understood about the human brain and this is the reason why neuroscientists rely heavily on the in vitro brain tissue samples from animals to understand the human brain. However, it is important to take note that animal brain tissues are entirely different from ours and if we do drug testing on the former, the effects could be catastrophic for us. Unfortunately, the brain has more than 86 billion nerve cells thus leaving a large gray area for scientists.
Recently, researchers from
Surgical transplantation procedures such as heart transplants can be very difficult to work with and this is the reason why patients have to join a long waitlist, along with other patients, in the hopes of getting a transplant. However, researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University want to improve the chances of getting a transplant early by developing a method for 3D bioprinting soft tissues.
Currently, the 3D printing technology uses materials like titanium and silicone to create flexibl
The 3D printing technology provides the medical industry with viable solutions for complicated medical procedures. Today, 3D printing is no longer used in creating prosthetics but also in synthetically creating natural-occurring cells and tissues.
Fabricating cells and tissues using 3D printing technology is a complex method. However, researchers were able to create breast cancer tissues and gland tissues to study disease progression and also drug testing. The key to the success of printing
3D bioprinting is very significant in the field of medicine, industrial engineering, pharmacology and materials construction. This is the reason why researchers from the University of Nottingham created a bioprinted material that works seemingly like play dough. This material is capable of enabling protein and cell transfer.
Lead researcher of the study Professor Jing Yang said that 'bioprinting is a very hot topic in tissue engineering'. The problem is that the output requires a good printing
3D printing is no longer restricted to creating 3D surgical models. Recently, this technology is used to create helpful medical devices to alleviate patients suffering from different conditions. One of the recent innovations in 3D printing technology was spearheaded by researchers from the University of Michigan. The researchers were able to create customized CPAP or respiratory masks to help improve the condition of patients suffering from breathing inefficiency.
This 3D printed medical devi
A 3D printer, which is already in the process of being commercialized, makes 3D printed skin grafts a reality. Known as the PrintAlive Bioprinter, it was designed and created by engineers of the University of Toronto, namely Arianna McAllister, Boyang Zhang, Lian Leng and associate professors Milica Radisic and Axel Guenther. The designed printer has already reaped the 2014 James Dyson Award for student design.
What’s so groundbreaking about this microwaved sized 3D printer is that it can creat
3D bioprinters are able to print living tissues for medical transplants and testing to name a few. However, recreating human tissues require a combination of human cells, biogels as well as different types of bioink materials aside from the nutrients and oxygen needed by the cells to survive. Specialized 3D bioprinters do not come cheap and they can cost between $100,000 and a million dollars depending on their specifications.
With the aim of developing an affordable 3D bioprinter, inventor
Surgery on the anterior crucial ligament (ACL) is difficult. The standard surgical procedure involves drilling a tunnel on the tibia to remove the ligament and reconstructing it by using transplanted graft. In most cases, the affected area that has been treated has a good chance of re-tearing after being repaired. However, this technique has many limitations such as entering the knee through the tibia can make it difficult to reattach the ligament to the original attachment point.
Having sa
Michael Balzer was a man who was well-versed with 3D printing. He is also the brains behind the site known as “All Things 3D.” He was also the man whose wife was diagnosed with, meningioma, a brain tumor. The news came as a shock to them in late 2013.
With Michael’s background on 3D printing, he wasted no time in creating 3D renderings of his wife’s brain scan. He even urged his wife to go on another CT with contrast to make sure that he had all the needed data to create an exact replica of his
