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
The sternum, commonly called breastbone, is a long and flat bony plate located on top of the heart and at the center of the chest. It connects the rib bones together and it functions in protecting the heart, lungs and blood vessels from physical trauma. However, certain conditions can lead to the disintegration of the sternum which include chest injuries and growth of tumor.
Researchers from the TangDu Hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University made the first 3D printed titanium sternum
Cerebral aneurysms affect one in every 50 individual in a population. It is also responsible for the 20,000 deaths in the United States. The Arizona State University (ASU) pioneered a program regarding cerebral aneurysm research. The research findings are applied at hospital partners by designing improved endovascular medical devices used to treat cerebral aneurysms.
The highlight of the research is the use of 3D medical printing wherein they used a device called Solidscape which is a BenchMark
As a first time parent—or in fact for a lot of moms, the waiting time for seeing your baby or holding your baby for the first time is an unbearable agony. Would-be parents just can’t wait to hold their wonderful babies in their arms. In fact, they have a hard time reining in their excitement on whose parental looks the baby is more like. That’s why ultrasounds are used by many parents to find out their baby’s gender; soon they were able to see their baby’s face more clearly through 3D ultrasoun
Garrett Peterson is an 18-month old baby who has never been to his home because of a medical condition known as Tetralogy of Fallot with a missing pulmonary valve. This condition places a great deal of pressure on the baby’s airways. And worse is, the condition led to the development of tracheobronchomalacia which is the softening of the bronchi and trachea thereby causing his airways to become tiny slits. With this condition, baby Garrett has lived all his life attached to a ventilator in a hos
3D bioprinting is now becoming a popular medical technology that doctors use in order to study medical models that can lead to breakthroughs in treating diseases and injuries. For instance, a 3D bio printed model of tumors can help surgeons remove cancer accurately without risking any damage to the surrounding healthy cells and tissues.
While 3D medical printing is a technology that is available only among doctors, creating 3D bio printed models is now possible. And this means that 3D bioprinti
With the combined efforts of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and the researchers from the University of Bath (Department of Chemical Engineering), they have created a water sensor through 3D printing that can check the water system’s safety levels for consumption. The device created by the researchers can provide round the clock water quality assessment which is a useful tool for people in the developing world to ensure that their drinking water is safe.
With the help of a 3d printer, the resea
Medical researchers have taken 3D bioprinting into another level as they have replicated DNA structures that can be used as “inks” in 3D designs to aid in the research of different yet new areas in medical diagnostics and the creation of nanomaterials. What is exciting about this development is that DNA can be programmed by changing the sequence of its amino acids, plus it is a stable structure.
According to MIT associate professor and proponent of the study Mark Bathe, his team created comput
Medacta USA announced that two US surgeons have completed the first ever spinal reconstruction using 3D printing. Spinal surgery got a boost from 3D medical printing thus giving hopes to many patients suffering from spinal diseases.
Dr. Samuel S. Jorgenson and Dr. Richard Manos from the Spine Institute of Idaho were the first surgeons to use the technology dubbed as the MySpine Patient Matched Technology. The spinal cord is an important part of the central nervous system next to the brain. It
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created an innovative robot which has a more dramatic range of motion and a more accurate control of its movements. Researchers hope that this "bio-bot" can enhance future designs of robots for research, construction, exploration, and even disaster relief operations.
This bio bot is powered by a skeletal muscle tissue from a mouse. It is skeletal tissues that drive human movement – from a little twitch of the finger to the whole
Organovo Holdings, Inc. is a manufacturer and creator of functional 3-Dimensional human tissues that are applied in therapeutic applications and medical research. Organovo collaborates with academic and pharmaceutical partners in order to come up with 3D human biological disease models.
With the current innovation of the 3D bioprinted liver tissue, it opens a lot of possibilities and new hopes when it comes to drug discovery. Discovering drugs is an easy process but testing the drugs for safety
3D medical printing is not only used to create medical innovations that are externally applied. Professors from the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich have been working on creating microscopic robots that can swim in the bloodstream of patients and work as cargo transporters.
Led by Professor Bradley Nelson, a specialist in robotics and intelligent systems, the researchers created robots that can very well lead to many medical innovations such as targeted drug delive
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
Researchers from Russian laboratory called 3D Bioprinting Solutions announced that the first successful product of 3D bioprinting will be transplanted and results will be published on May 2015. The first 3D bioprinted organ will be the thyroid gland. The head of the research laboratory, Vladimir Mironov, noted that the thyroid gland was chosen as the first product in 3D medical printing because of the simplicity of the organ. The bioprinted thyroid was created by a 3D printer that shoots off ste
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
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 bioprinting is a process of creating spatially-controlled cells using 3D printers. There are many uses of this particular technology which includes the use of 3D printers to make stem cells and building body parts to replace damaged ones. It is one of the most important engineering tools brought into the field of medical technology.
One of the most recent and interesting use of 3D bioprinting is on breast cancer research. Researchers from the Texas Medical Center created in vitro models of b
Currently, Ebola is the most dreaded epidemic in the world which accounts to more than 5,000 lives lost mainly in Africa. As of this writing, the Ebola disease does not have any vaccines available. Those who are inflicted with this virus are treated based on their symptoms. To make matters worse, the scientists all over the world is running a race against a global Ebola pandemic threat that is about to become a reality.
However, the spread of the Ebola virus has also given the opport
One of the biggest obstacles that the medical world confronts when it comes to 3D Bio-printing is the cost of the printers which can go for US$300,000 or more. But a recent development by the Louisiana Tech University researchers showed that it was possible to create drug emitting implants with a MakerBot Replicator which is an affordable desktop 3D printer. This has opened a lot of avenues for the medical world to create innovative ways of prototyping possibilities to treat diseases and patient
Medical marijuana is one of the most promising plants in medical science today. However, the use of medical marijuana is not widely accepted by many people and countries. This problem created an opportunity to some innovative companies. Israeli company Syqe Medical created a more acceptable medical marijuana inhaler using a 3D medical printer. This device delivers precise dosage of marijuana thus physicians can overcome the problem of unpredictability of prescribing medical marijuana.
This inno
Michael Balzer was a man who was well-versed with 3D printing. He is also the brains behind the site known as “All Things 3D.” He was also the man whose wife was diagnosed with, meningioma, a brain tumor. The news came as a shock to them in late 2013.
With Michael’s background on 3D printing, he wasted no time in creating 3D renderings of his wife’s brain scan. He even urged his wife to go on another CT with contrast to make sure that he had all the needed data to create an exact replica of his
The BioBot 3D Printer is a low cost 3D printer that’s capable of bioprinting non-living scaffolds or living cell tissues for only US$ 5,000. This has opened a lot of research avenues to researchers with limited budget for their studies.
The BioBot 3D Bioprinter is launched by the BioBots Company. Behind the BioBots startup is a University of Pennsylvania Engineering School graduate, Daniel Cabrera. Daniel Cabrera is the genius behind this startup company. For his work on automating genetic engi
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
A two week old baby, with a complicated heart problem that required an equally complicated surgery, in a New York hospital has been saved with the help of a 3D printed heart.
At the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City, the baby’s heart was 3D printed with the help of an MRI scan data. The baby was suffering from coronary heart disease (CHD). Commonly with CHD, the heart is riddled with holes—this is likewise true of the baby’s heart but what made the condition worse was that the
Gone is the time when would-be surgeons have to study human anatomy with the help of a detailed picture of a human heart or with the help of a cadaver heart. This time around, thanks to the invention of 3D printers, trainee surgeons can study a lifelike heart prosthetic—with all the works. This is as close as you can get to a real human heart without a patient, of course.
The creator of this 3D printed prosthetic is Richard Arm of the Nottingham Trent University. The prosthetic is made from a s
