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To the general person who is not entrenched in the world of engineering, the rise of 3D printing began with lofty aspirations pointing to all the potential uses of the technology for the average consumer, from printing custom sneakers to musical instruments. But household 3D-printing technology didn’t disrupt supply chains like experts predicted. Instead, 3D printing has been infiltrating our lives behind the scenes via the world of product development, pushing new boundaries with innovation across industries like automotive, electronics and healthcare.
In the healthcare industry, there is a need for precision at any scale, particularly for smaller devices that enable less invasive procedures and the integration of robotics. And 3D printing opens a wealth of opportunities, from creating surgical instruments to printing bio drugs that could potentially replace vaccines. It goes beyond disrupting traditional manufacturing methods to allowing for on-demand production that is more cost-effective and efficient, highly precise and accurate, and customizable. Right now, ideas are being held up in conception because there is limited awareness of pathways to adoption. But 3D printing, especially at the micro scale, is fueling innovations and advancement.
Capitalizing on the momentum of 3D disruption and the opportunity to accelerate innovation, the University of Nottingham’s Center for Additive Manufacturing received a £6 million ($7.4 million) grant from the British government to assemble a group of project partners and develop a toolkit that would allow for 3D-printed biomedicines, such as prostheses, bio drugs and wound patches, to become mainstream and easily accessible.
The program’s goal is to assemble a collection of tools that will make R&D and production with 3D printing more efficient and standardized, enabling adoption into workflows in biopharma, cell therapy, regenerative medicine and the healthcare industry at large.
The project partners include fellow researchers at universities in the U.K.; pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer; and experts in high-performance 3D printing from Formlabs, Xaar and Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF). Through this collaboration, micro 3D printing will help to enable miniaturization, crucial for the future of medical devices, using Projection Micro Stereolithography (PµSL) technology, which can achieve resolution down to 2 µm, ±10-µm tolerance.
The project will cover three focus areas over the span of three years:
- BMF S240 in lab application, printing scaffolds but with cells embedded. For many bioprinting applications, scaffolds are produced and cells are added afterward. In this case, the process is happening concurrently. The S240 is being operated in a sterile cabinet to enable this approach.
- The BMF S130, printing intestinal patches intended for future implantation as a remedy for damage left by tumor removal and/or cancer. The BMF platform offers the resolution required to print vasculature while offering throughput that makes production viable.
- Surface topology on devices. There are multiple applications in which the high resolution of the BMF platforms can be coupled with traditional manufacturing methods. These traditional methods are deployed to create the product and then micro 3D printing is deployed to add features and topology on top to increase functionality.
The discoveries made along the way in this partnership are expected to lay the groundwork for new therapeutics and pharmaceutical developments, moving new innovations in medical technology toward commercialization. A decade ago, the expectation that 3D printing would disrupt general consumerism and supply chains fell short, but today, it is creating space for a revolution in technological advances across industries that are making a real difference in the health and lives of people.
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