Life Science 3D Printing News

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Dr. AndreAna Pena is our Senior Editor covering the Life Sciences in 3D Printing.  AndreAna has a PhD in Cellular and Structural Biology from UTHSC San Antonio. In addition to writing about developments in bioprinting and medical printing, Dr Pena drives research in the oral microbiome and develops bioactive dental appliances that change the oral environment to improve oral health.  Dr. Pena has worked on an expansive range of topics including cancer, biofuels, neuroscience, microbiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, materials engineering, bioinformatics, and 3d printing from the nano-scale up.

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Futuristic Skin Bio Printer Successfully Completed By Wake Forest Researchers

A team from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) has successfully developed Mobile Skin Bioprinting System that provides rapid on-site management of full-thickness wounds using 3D Printing, however waiting human trials. It consists of a hand-held 3D scanner and a printing head with an XYZ movement system containing eight 260 µm diameter nozzles, each driven by an independent dispensing motor with a ZScanner Z700 scanner. It 3D prints directly on the wound a double layered skin substitute consisting dermal fibroblasts and epidermal keratinocytes cells that exactly match the patient’s wound.

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Astrophysics Combined With 3D Printing Yields Ultimate 3D Print Models

UK researchers, I. Brewis and J.A. McLaughlin, at Northumbria University unveiled their new research that combines astrophysics with 3D Imaging and Printing in cardiovascular health care. Using the astrophysics in creating new image-processing techniques for viewing the human heart, transferring the data to an .stl file and then 3D printing a medical model, they finally produced a precise 3D model of a patient’s heart with Aortic Aneurysm using Netfabb and SLA 3D Printer.

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Surgeons At VA Hospital Channeling 3D Printing To Create the Ideal Mandibular Implant

Two Maxillofacial Surgeons, Clossman and Houlton from VA Puget Sound Health Care Center, with help from radiologists using CT scans, created exact replicas of three patients’ mandibles, using the hospital’s Stratasys 3D printer. These models allowed the surgeons to compare standard mandibular implants to the 3D printed replicas, adjusting the size and shape as needed. The 3D printed custom mandible models was made in 2hours with OR time estimated at about $80 a minute, avoiding anesthesia workup and surgery planning.

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Tumor Analysis Platform A Unique Device By 3D Printing For Customized Cancer Treatment

Researchers from MIT and Draper University have developed a 3D Printed Microfluidic Device called Tumor Analysis Platform or TAP that simulates cancer treatments on biopsied cancerous tissue. 3D Printable in about an hour, the Chip device uses the biopsied tumor fragments placement in a chamber connected to a network of deliver fluids to the tissue and contains a new type of biocompatible resin, Pro3dure GR-10 Resin, that can support the long-term survival of biopsied tissue. The TAP is cheap and easy to fabricate and adaptable for clinical use.

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Neural Scaffold Implant That Can Help In Recovery Of Patients With Spinal Cord Injury

A team of engineers and medical researchers from the University of Minnesota (UMN) are working on creating Neural Scaffold that can help patients with spinal cord injury alleviate pain and gain control over functions like bladder, bowel, and muscle control again. The prototype contains 3D Printed Silicone Guide acts as a scaffold, over which neuronal stem cells are 3D Printed, which then later differentiate into neurons, and then it is implanted into the injured part of spinal cord.

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Had Heart Attack The New 3D Printed Cardiac Patch Heal The Permanent Damage

Once a person suffers myocardial infarction or heart attack in local language, some part of heart is destroyed permanently at cellular level which cannot recover or regenerate. However, scientists have developed 3D printed cardiac patches that can be used to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks, but only about five have been produced worldwide. A group of researchers 3D printed a world-first stretchable microfiber scaffold with a hexagonal design to which added specialized stem cells called iPS-Cardiomyocytes, which began to contract unstimulated on the scaffold. The work has been demonstrated on the actual hearts of pigs and being planned for human trials.

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PLACTIVE 3D Printed Filament Is The New Focus Of NASA

A Chilean startup Copper3D had recently unveiled PLACTIVE, an antibacterial 3D printing filament designed for the production of medical devices such as prosthetics and braces. Taking interest in PLACTIVE, the NASA Nebraska Space Grant is working with the University of Nebraska Omaha and Copper3D on a study of PLACTIVE and states the new material has already passed very exhaustive laboratory tests with +99.99% elimination of most dangerous bacterial strains.

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Breakthrough 3D Printed Bionic Eye Could Restore or Enhance Sight

A team of researchers at University of Minnesota researchers are working on what they call “Bionic Eye” by Custom 3D Printing photoreceptors on a hemispherical surface. The process consumed hemispherical glass dome, silver particle base ink, semiconducting polymer materials and approximately one hour. With 25% efficiency, they are now planning to create prototypes that are even more efficient and could be worked upon for implantation into a real eye, thereby restoring or improving sight.

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regenHU Wako Automation Assist 3D Bioprinting Along With Drug Discovery

3D biotechnology company regenHU with Wako Automation combined to exploits the potential of cell-based therapies and 3D bioprinting to develop biomedical products for drug discovery and regenerative medicine. They will use their specialization of bioprinting solutions, laboratory automation and high content imaging for the same. They demonstrated their technologies at SLAS Conference in San Diego.

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 Human Skin With Actual Pigmentation Gets 3d Printed

Researchers at A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) and the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing (SC3DP) at Nanyang Technological University have developed a way to create pigmentation in 3D printed skin by using bioprinting to control the distribution of melanin-producing skin cells, on a biomimetic tissue substrate. They used three different types of skin cells and drop on demand method of bioprinting to create the pigmented skin.

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Researchers Work Towards Building Medical Models for Peritoneal Cancer

Researchers at Ghent University have developed a 3D bioprinted model of a scaffold from PLA that more accurately replicates the size, porosity and mechanical and biochemical properties of peritoneal metastasis to treat Cancer. Cancerous cells are then cultivated for testing after which they implanted their model in the peritoneal cavities of a mice to test its working in vivo.

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 FDA Clears 3D Printed Implants From Emerging Implant Tech

Emerging Implant Technologies (EIT), a German company, famous for its Cellular Titanium technology, has received FDA clearance again, to expand their EIT Cellular Titanium Cervical Cage to be used in multiple contiguous cervical levels (C2 to T1) and this is the first multi-level 3D printed cervical cage to enter the US market. It is designed to be used with autogenous and/or allogenic bone grafts to facilitate fusion, and should be used with supplemental fixation.