Injection Moulding Asia 3D Printing
Bioprinting: Body parts on demand Though riddled with structural and ethical
The global 3D printing market is expected to be worth nearly US$3 billion by 2022, expanding challenges, organ fabrication through 3D across the medical/healthcare sector with a range of applications in medical implants, tissue engineering, bioprinting may be the holy grail to mitigating surgical devices, drug manufacturing, and others, organ shortages, promoting the quality of life, according to IQ4I Research & Consultancy in its forecast. and ultimately saving lives, says Angelica In Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, the investment Buan in this report. into 3D printing is likely to reach over US$4 billion by 2019, which is thrice as much as the current US$1.5 billion, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). The market accounts for a bigger rgan transplantation is challenging in terms of share of hardware spending in the international 3D supply and ethical contentions, to say the least. printing market. Conversely, more 3D printers are Demand exceeds supply to the point that organ being used in North and South America than in Asia, distribution results in practices crossing beyond what it added. is legally and ethically acceptable. Organ trafficking Some of the major companies included in 3D has become rampant due printing healthcare market to organ shortage vis-à-vis are 3D Systems, Arcam AB, “...the market is expected to be EnvisionTEC, EOS, ExOne, recipients, as the waiting list of recipients grows by the day. worth nearly US$3 billion by Materialise NV, Optomec, Crushing the so-called Organovo, Reinshaw, 2022…” black market for organs, Nano3D, SLM Solutions particularly for kidneys, is and Stratasys. as galling as eradicating the poverty problem, a major condition that has forced Reducing the cost of the technology some people to sell their organs. The World Health There is no doubt that cost of the technology is an Organisation (WHO) has found this to be rampant in impediment, but an extensive choice of viable 3D Southeast Asia, which is the leading organ exporter printers is available where 3D Systems and Stratasys and has become known as a hub for organ tourism. play a major role. Meanwhile, newer, smaller and more userBioprinting: a saviour? friendly machines are being introduced, such as The advent of 3D bioprinting is expected to allow the Aether 1, which US-based Aether describes as access to replacement for body parts and organs faster, a bioprinter with eight syringe extruders, twice with lesser complications and in the longer term, be more than a normal bioprinter, plus laser-assisted more cost effective. Although in its nascent stage, 3D bioprinting and droplet jetting capabilities.Though bioprinting has already reported successes in prosthetic not released yet, it is expected to retail at US$9,000, parts, though it’s current use is for preparation of which is said to be a steal considering that high-end anatomical models and medical equipment. bioprinters retail at around US$250,000. An offshoot of 3D printing or additive Another US manufacturing (AM), the technology is much more company BioBots complex. A paper on bioprinting by the Pennsylvania has created a State University describes it as a “computer-aided compact printer biofabrication of 3D organs that utilises rapid retailing at prototyping technology to print cells, biomaterials and US$10,000. In cell-laden biomaterials individually or in pairs, layerBioBot1, unlike by-layer, directly creating 3D tissue-like structures.” other 3D printers, Bioprinting “is an extension of tissue engineering”, according to the paper’s authors, Ibrahim Ozbolat and Yin Yu, adding that, “it uses bioadditive BioBots’ printer uses manufacturing technologies including laser-based UV light to cure and writing, inkjet-based printing and extrusion-based harden the layer deposition.” structures
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Injection Moulding Asia 3D Printing Body parts at the click of a button The precision of 3D printing makes it a promising method for replicating the body’s complex tissues and organs. However, current printers based on jetting, extrusion and laser-induced forward transfer cannot produce structures with sufficient size or strength to implant in the body. Using a sophisticated, custom-designed 3D printer, scientists from the US Wake Forest Baptist School of Medicine have printed ear, bone and muscle structures. When implanted in animals, the structures matured into functional tissue and developed a system of blood vessels. Most importantly, these early results indicate that the structures have the right size, strength and function for use in humans.
once a biological material has been extruded, a UV light cures and hardens it, one layer at a time. The objects printed can be living cell tissue or nonliving scaffolds, and the company says that over a dozen different cell types have been used with these printers so far. The unique cartridge system that BioBots uses, enables users to switch between the printing of different biological materials, almost as easily as a normal desktop printer can switch between colours. Materials advancing along Meanwhile, new materials are also being developed. French 3D printing services provider Sculpteo has developed a TPU material, engineered for use in SLS 3D printing with a 65A Shore hardness making it flexible and capable of producing complex mechanical properties. Sculpteo has already 3D printed a human heart that mimics as closely as possible all the mechanical properties of the Using TPU, Sculpteo has 3D-printed a human real organ and heart that mimics the real thing can be used in trainings and pre-surgery planning. A group of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden make use of cellulose derived from wood pulp, mixed with hydrogel. They also added carbon nanotubes to create electrically conductive material. The effect is that cellulose and other raw material based on wood will be able to compete with fossil-based plastics and metals in the on-going additive manufacturing revolution.
Wake Forest Baptist regenerative medicine scientists have proved that it is feasible to print living tissue structures. The team said the printer is an important advance in the quest to make replacement tissue for patients
With funding from the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP) was developed over a ten-year period. It overcomes challenges of conventional 3D printers and deposits both biodegradable, plastic-like materials to form the tissue “shape� and water-based gels that contain the cells. In addition, a strong, temporary outer structure is formed. The printing process does not harm the cells, say the collaborators. Advancing orthopaedics In orthopaedics, 3D bioprinting has resolved certain challenges for injury-risk patients in sports and prosthetics wearers. In an example scenario, children suffering from congenital limb loss have to use prosthetics, but they will eventually outgrow them. Johns Hopkins Hospital surgeon Dr Albert Chi is creating plastic hands for his patients using 3D printers. For this
Chalmers University has managed to print 3D objects made entirely by cellulose
Dr Albert Chi is creating plastic hands for his patients using 3D printers
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Injection Moulding Asia 3D Printing endeavour, he works with Enabling the Future, a network of volunteers who 3D-print plastic hands for children for free. Simiarly, Canadian non-profit organisation Nia Technologies uses the 3D PrintAbility, a technology developed and deployed by Nia and the University of Toronto, to create custom-fit prosthetic sockets and orthotic braces for children. Nia says that the traditional way of making a prosthetic limb takes about a week and involves labourious processes, whereas 3D PrintAbility combines inexpensive 3D scanning, design and printing components to provide prosthetists with a new set of orthopaedic tools.
Aside from the complexity of procedures in major operations, time is also of the essence. Thus, Vancouver-based NewPro3D has created the Intelligent Liquid Interface (ILI) technology, similar to stereolithography, that uses a light source to cure photosensitive resin. It claims what would take 210 minutes to print using selective laser sintering, takes only 4.5 minutes on its printer! It integrates a transparent wettable membrane between the photocuring resin and the light source. The membrane is chemically designed to create a dead zone and inhibit NewPro3D has upped the ante with the polymerisation faster speeds for 3D printing between the membrane and the printed object. This eliminates the mechanical processes used on conventional 3D printing techniques, thus allowing the growth of an object at record speed, the company explained.
“…3D bioprinting aside, 4D technology that creates hydrogel composite structures is being unveiled…”
Nia Technologies says its technology cuts down the time taken to make prosthetics
Making complicated surgeries “easier” 3D bioprinting also aids in complicated, betweenlife-and-death surgeries. Surgeons at the Texas Children’s Hospital recently carried out a successful operation on conjoined twins who were fused from the chest to the pelvis. A replica of the relevant body parts and skeletal structures of the twins were created using multi-material 3D printing and fashioned from hard plastic resin, while the softer organs were printed using a rubber-like material. A major brain surgery for aneurysm was performed on a 50 year-old Chinese woman at the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian University, facilitated with a 3D printed model of the patient’s brain CT scan, using hard transparent resin for the skull replica and the softer resin for the arteries, thus allowing the surgeons to determine the location of the aneurysms. More recently, the life of a nine-month old baby with congenital heart defect was saved by Chinese doctors performing open hearty surgery utilising Materialise’s Mimics software to convert MRI scan to a 3D printed heart.
In conclusion, just as the medical/healthcare industry is catching its breath at the awesomeness of 3D bioprinting, the 4D technology that creates hydrogel composite structures (that change shape when immersed in water) is being unveiled, and is expected to offer a greater prowess than its forerunner.
A combination of detailed CT imaging and 3D printing technology was used for the first time in the surgical planning for separation of conjoined twins in the Texas Children’s Hospital
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