In recent years, the applications for 3D printing in healthcare have been expanding into the limitless. Once reserved primarily for prototyping, the technology has quickly proliferated in the life sciences – with applications that range from personalized surgical implants, scaffolding and tissue generation.
The 3D printing market in healthcare will reach $4 billion by 2018, according to a report from British market research firm Visiongain. The most well-known use of 3D printing may be Organovo, the publicly traded San Diego company that likens cells to ink in a 3D printing process that builds live human tissue.
Here are some ways researchers and startups are taking an interesting spin on the 3D printing technology in healthcare:
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Rebuilding nerve cells
File this one under the scaffolding category: A team of researchers at Michigan Technological University are using 3D printing to help rebuild nerve tissue.
By building out a matrix to grow fully functional nerve cells, the idea is to ready these hard-to-regenerate cells for transplant back into the body.
The technology may help regenerate damaged nerve tissue in patients with spinal cord injuries, said Tolou Shokuhfar, director of the Michigan Tech In-Situ Nanomedicine Institute, and a researcher involved in the project. It uses cellulose nanocrystals to help build out the bioscaffolding – which can be produced with a machine the size of a desktop printer, the university says.
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Lowering the cost of prosthetics
3D printing startup Project io is meant to improve the fitting process of prosthetics, by scanning the remaining limb of a patient and creating a custom fit. By making a prosthetic development app available on iPads and other such devices, the startup says it’s “democratizing 3D tech for the mass market.” Similar work is being done by e-NABLE – an online community of people who work together to create prosthetics for those in need using 3D printers.
There’s also the Open Hand Project, an open-source attempt to the price of 3D-printed prosthetics down to $1,000. Standard prosthetics can costs tens of thousands of dollars – particularly the sort built by this group. The Open Hand Project is developing robotic prosthetic hands for amputees.
Drug-delivering microbots
Swiss researchers are creating microscopic robots that will transport drugs within the body. Work done at ETH Zurich by Bradley Nelson, a professor of robotics and intelligent systems, and Christofer Hierold, a professor of micro and nanosystems, could apply these minirobots to improve minimally invasive surgery, targeted drug delivery, remote sensing and single cell manipulation.
These microbots are designed to operate like flagella, so they can be digitally maneuvered and sent to deliver the drugs at preset locations around the body.
Surgical planning
One of the simplest applications for 3D printing in healthcare is in surgical planning and education – scanning a patient’s internal organs to build out a 3D model to simply practice on.
Fuwai Hospital in Beijing is using this technology for cardiovascular intervention – working with Belgium 3D printing outfit Materialise to create heart models to practice for intricate surgery. This imaging and subsequent printing of 3D heart models could improve outcomes in these intricate surgeries.
“This is especially true for babies born with heart defects due to the complexity that comes with treating patients so young and delicate,” Materialise chairman Peter Leys said in a statement.
