Dental and hip implants and prosthetics, however, rely on bone tissue rather than vascularization and so are leading the way in 3-D-printing of body parts. To date, other successful efforts have produced 3-D printed ears, skulls, arms, and legs (but not fingers due to required nerve endings and blood flow), hip implants, and breast tissue (used with scaffolds to regenerate fatty tissue in women with mastectomies).
“If functional human tissue printing – livers, heart, ears, hands and eyes – turns out to be a reality, then it is indeed going to be a potential game changer. With the current advancements in 3-D printing technologies for customized fabrication of complex polymer-based objects, there is much focus on adapting 3-D printing technologies for health care applications
The 3D Medical Applications Center (3DMAC) at Walter Reed-Bethesda National Military Medical Center provides computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) for fabrication of medical models and custom implants, technical support for virtual treatment planning, and image capture in support of patient treatment, graduate medical/dental education, and research. 3DMAC serves the Medical Center, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Naval Postgraduate Dental School, DOD MTF/dental treatment facilities, other federal entities, and worldwide allied medical institutions.
Services include custom implants, from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cranial plates to custom titanium and other reconstruction plates.
3-D printing also has been used to create inexpensive, but functional, robotic hand and arm prosthetics for some 1,500 children around the world.
3-D printing is being combined with other new technologies to create a host of new possibilities in medicine, but also advanced laser technology, microscopy, solar cells, electronics, environmental testing, disease detection, and more. Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, for example, recently created a way to form prescribed shapes and dimensions using 3-D-printed metal nanoparticles and DNA as a construction mold.
Wyss researchers have been pursuing the combined potential of 3-D printing and DNA nanotechnology for years.
“The properties of DNA that allow it to self-assemble and encode the building blocks of life have been harnessed, re-purposed, and re-imagined for the nanomanufacturing of inorganic materials,” Wyss Institute founding director Dr. Don Ingber explained. “This capability should open up entirely new strategies for fields ranging from computer miniaturization to energy and pathogen detection.”
In April 2015, 3-D printing took center stage at the Co-Engineering the Future of Healthcare global conference in Brussels. It also has become a growing topic of discussion at medical conferences, industry shows, corporate and academic research proposals, congressional funding requests, and even popular TV talk shows.
“If functional human tissue printing – livers, heart, ears, hands and eyes – turns out to be a reality, then it is indeed going to be a potential game changer. With the current advancements in 3-D printing technologies for customized fabrication of complex polymer-based objects, there is much focus on adapting 3-D printing technologies for health care applications. This has aroused interest in engineering bio-printing devices that can develop 3-D structures and, at the same time, accommodate the incorporation of living cells,” according to a January 2015 Frost & Sullivan report – “3D Printing Reshapes Healthcare and Medicine” – by health care research analyst Swathi Allada.
“Alongside human tissue, 3-D printing technology can be used to develop body parts. 3-D printing has been used for pioneering work on foetal medicine apart from usage in orthotics, prosthetics printing and surgery planning.”
Although the health care industry historically has been a late adopter of electronics and digital applications, the industry has embraced 3-D printing with great speed and enthusiasm, seeing it as a specialized technology with almost universal applications. In that respect, it is seen as a truly “disruptive” technology with potential implications far beyond computers, the Internet, and robots.
“In the near future, 3-D printing technology will be able to address the global shortage of organs for transplant. The medical industry is focusing all its resources into developing technologies and prototypes that will transform this idea into a reality. It is expected that, in the near future, strips of printed tissue will soon be advanced enough to test new drugs under development,” Allada wrote.
“Alongside human tissue, 3-D printing technology can be used to develop body parts. 3-D printing has been used for pioneering work on foetal medicine apart from usage in orthotics, prosthetics printing and surgery planning.”