3D-Printing Organs: Not Your Average Printer

3D-Printing Organs: Not Your Average Printer

People have used 3D printers in a variety of fields. From art to science, additive manufacturing helped many different areas grow. Two recent 3D developments may have bettered the medical industry.

3D printing reconstructed ears

Everyone wants to be able to choose what type of procedure or fix they want. If you are a person with a damaged ear though, your choice is limited. Any type of reconstruction that your doctor or a scientist completes will result in an ear that lacks a natural look and regular sound performance, not to mention the pain.

A team at Cornell University may have found the solution. The group found a way to make an ear that is more lifelike than what previous procedures made.
Professor Lawrence Bonassar and his colleagues first scanned his five year old twin daughters' ears. The next step was to print a plastic mold using a 3D printer. The team then injected a gel which contained living cells into the mold. After 15 minutes the ear can be removed. All that is left to do is trimming any excess off.

The researchers admire the quickness of making the ears. The total process take less than 48 hours: half a day to scan and design the mold, one day to print, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and the 15 minute wait mentioned before. This can be great for people who do not want to wait weeks or months to have someone replace their ear.

Besides the time needed for surgery, surgeons also worry about whether the body will accept the new organ. Previous methods used different cells such as rib cartilage to do make any fake ears. With the 3D printer being added, the research team at Cornell can now work on growing human ear cartilage cells. If the cells can be made similar to the previous ones, the body will be less likely to reject any new additions.

Do not expect real-looking fake ears any time soon. The group needs to experiment with them first. They announced that the ears should be ready to go in about 3 years.

The heart of 3D printing

Your heart has one of the hardest jobs in your body. No matter what happens, it needs to beat all-day, every day. Any sort of stop will result in a heart attack and possibly death. What causes the heart to beat is an electrical impulse created by the pacemaker. Doctors have replaced damaged or non-operating hearts with artificial ones. These have saved the lives of many. A new artificial "heart" has been designed and printed recently.

Well you may not want to consider it a backup in case your heart fails. The printed object is a biologically-driven actuator. Peter Walters and his colleagues from the University of the West of England invented the device. They used photopolymer jetting technique developed by Stratasys to print it. Yeast provides the electricity to make it beat. The actuator is primarily meant for robotic purposes.

The future of medicine

Hopefully other professors or people in general will be inspired by the two creations, mainly the ear. If we can use the 3D printer to make custom ears, what could stop us from using it to make custom legs, hands, or noses. Many scientific achievements may come in future years and printing technology will be the beat behind it.

Quinn Farhessi is a technologist and additive manufacturing consultant on 3d printing service and Objet 3D Printers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Quinn_Farhessi

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7592387

Loci’s Sculptural 3D Printed Flight Paths

Travel into an entity

3D printing has always been about making the virtual tangible. But have you ever considered making the aerial tangible?

If you have a treasured memory of a flight, be it a family holiday, a honeymoon or even all your flights from a given year, Loci can give substance to your memory and create a unique 3D printed sculpture of your voyages.

來源：SoundPlusDesign的

Understanding Modern 3D Printing

Over the years, the technology has evolved into one of the more popular types of rapid prototyping, and even rapid manufacturing. For those who are not familiar with 3D printing, it is a form of rapid prototyping technology where successive layers of a material are added to form the final three-dimensional model. 3D printing has been used successfully in several industries, including architectural and industrial design, footwear, and jewelry design. Apart from design, the technology has also found applications in automotive industry, construction and engineering industry, and aerospace industries. One of the most common forms of 3D printing is Polyjet printing.

What is Polyjet 3D printing?

Polyjet 3D printing, or polyjet matrix printing, is a method that allows the usage of different materials to create a composite model. The feature allows a printer head to jet out different materials simultaneously, and it has been a boon for 3D printing technology in general. Polyjet printing allows designers to create a model that looks, feels, and functions like the final product. Modern 3D printers with this technology can create models with parts made of different products in a single process.

This particular 3D printing technology works by injecting different materials according to preset material combinations. The jet process can be configured to create models made of two flexible materials, two rigid materials, or one of both types. Larger machines are capable of using more than two materials, providing even more combinations for designers to choose from.

3D printing applications

3D printing is already being applied in different industries where product design and visualization is a key area. These printers have been used for education, architecture, CAD/prototyping, healthcare, retail, and metal casing. The wide range of usage of this technology is evident from the fact that it has also been used by archeology teams to reconstruct detailed models of fossils and historical artifacts. The method has been used to some degree in the unlikely field of criminal forensics as well, where crime scene investigators use 3D printer to create body parts, damaged evidence, and bones as part of their investigation.

3D printing has recently found its way into the field of academics as well. Universities and academic institutes have added 3D printers to their campuses as a useful teaching tool. It has also been used by students to create their own models as part of their curriculum. 3D printing has especially been used to study design and biotechnology.

The influence of 3D printing

3D printing has influenced several industries in many ways. For one, the technology has made it much easier and less expensive to create three-dimensional models. Designers and companies previously used moulds to create 3D models, which was an expensive and time-consuming process. However, modern 3D printing does not require any mould for making the model, making the process much more efficient. The influence of 3D printing is set to grow even more within the next few years with the evolution of rapid manufacturing. In order words, 3D printing may one day be used to manufacture the final product instead of just test models, and that day is not too far.