We have to thank Charles Hull for inventing 3-D printing back in 1984. Now, applications of 3-D printing are seen in many industries: aerospace, automotive, consumer and military.
In the medical and healthcare worlds, 3-D printing applications are both edifying and mystifying.
Take the case of toddler Emma Lavelle, who didn’t have the function of her arms because of a congenital condition known as arthrogryposis multiplex congenita. She had never lifted her arms to put candy in her mouth, never managed to hug anyone, never built a tower of blocks.
And then her mother heard about a new device — the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX) — at a conference in Philadelphia. The device, a custom-designed robotic exoskeleton, was too big for her even though the developers Tariq Rahman, Ph.D., head of pediatric engineering and research, and Whitney Sample, research designer, both from Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, had tried to make it smaller.
Yet, Emma at 2 was small for her age, and the device was metallic and too big for her. She needed something light and portable. In the end, the researchers used a 3-D printer from a Minnesota company named Stratasys, with its own storied history in 3-D printing, to create a WREX made of plastic that would fit her.
Now, 4-year-old Emma wears the WREX at home, preschool and in occupational therapy sessions. See the video of the “magic arms”, Emma’s name for the WREX.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
If Emma’s story brings a tear to your eyes, another application of 3-D printing may prompt you to roll them.
As reported by Mashable, the Japanese have come up with a way to create a 3-D model of an unborn child. So, if you are not content with those 3-D ultrasound pics (that are quite freakish already), you can use the Fasotec 3-D printer to get a rendering of the fetus. What’s more, the model is to scale. You can either build the whole baby or focus on a specific part — such as the face.
