Day: March 2, 2017

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Mayo clinic researchers develop 3D printed porous scaffold implant for ACL injuries

Mayo Clinic‘s tissue engineering and biomaterials laboratory researchers in Rochester, MN have developed a 3D printed scaffold implant. This scaffold porous implant will facilitate bone regeneration in patients undergoing ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) reconstruction.

Athletes often suffer from Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury, especially soccer, basketball, football players and gymnasts. Sudden jerks cause the ligament in the knee to stretch, causing immense pain and giving a feeling that the knee has popped out. Hence it is identified by the name ’pop’ in the knee.

The 3D printed scaffold developed by Mayo clinic researchers could be a big breakthrough in this respect, as medical experts are finding effective treatments measures for this problem. The Mayo clinic team’s findings are published in the journal Tissue Engineering, which states that their 3D printed porous scaffold implant slowly releases a human protein which speeds up the ligament injury process.

Joshua Alan Parry, MD; Sanjeev Kakar, MD; and coauthors from the Mayo Clinic, stated that the 3D printed scaffold implant releases a human bone-promoting protein over a period of time which leads to bone regeneration.

The 3D printed has a diameter of 3 mm, a length of 10 mm, and houses 300 μm pores. The researchers compared four different protein delivery options. Before testing the protein release options, the researchers created four different scaffold designs at 0%, 20%, 35% and 44% levels of porosity. The researchers settled for the rabbit ACL construction method, inferring that the ‘20% scaffold’ maintained the best levels of protein release.

Next, they tested the four delivery methods tested—microspheres only, microspheres + collagen, collagen only, and a saline solution only. The team settled for the microsphere scaffolds which had an additive effect, reducing gradually the initial burst release and cumulative release of rhBMP-2, and were most effective for bone regeneration.

The 3D printed scaffolds were designed using SolidWorks 3D CAD software and fabricated using a Viper si2 Stereolithography 3D printer from 3D Systems.

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University of Tasmania Prof receives $630k as grant for his contribution to 3D printing

The Australian Research Council has awarded Professor Michael Breadmore, from the University of Tasmania, a $630,000 grant for his contribution to 3D printing and portable analytical systems. Breadmore and his team will reportedly work with Taiwan-based 3D printing company Young Optics to develop a high-resolution, high-speed 3D printer for a portable analytical system.

Breadmore’s area of specialization is analytical chemistry, a field dedicated to tools and procedures used to separate, identify, and quantify matter. The Australian professor and his team have been working on lab-on-a-chip portable analytical devices. These devices offer users the ability to test samples and receive results themselves. Lab-on-a-chip technology can radically advance analytical applications in the clinical, forensic, environmental, and industrial sectors. The home pregnancy and blood-alcohol tests are popular examples of this technology.

3d printing promises to open greater doors for analytical technology. Breadmore has been researching in this field for the last ten years. With 3D printing, they hope to make the technology portable so that they can get chemical information at the collection site itself.

The researcher’s findings have been directed in the fields of detecting trace levels of pharmaceuticals in water, pollutants, homemade explosives, biological fluids and more. Analysis of blood samples, pharmaceuticals, residue and other fluids, on the spot, could turn out to be revolutionary in many fields, as stated by Breadmore in his web page of the University of Tasmania. The $630k funding will further help the team in their research work.

Breadmore and his team can now use the grant amount to work with Young Optics, the Taiwan company and maker of the MiiCraft DLP 3D printer. Together, they are working on a new high-resolution, high-speed 3D printer that will manufacture portable analytical systems. Breadmore says that with the 3D printer, they will manufacture objects the size of a cell, and they would be used for interesting chemical experiments.

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Researchers at UCLA develop medical sensors using machine learning and 3D printing

Machine learning is an important part of computing. Researchers at the UCLA are working on combining 3D printing with machine learning. Using the two technologies, the researchers have designed a 3D printer prototype detector with a sensor to detect minute items like cancer biomarkers, viruses, and proteins. This discovery could pave way for the diagnosis of serious infections and diseases.

Plasmonic sensing provides information about the composition of things at the sub-microscopic level. It has been used in the medicals sectors since long and in this process light is shone into nanostructures thereby amplifying the metal electric field. This interaction between the field and the molecule is studied to give out inferences on the kinetics and molecular concentration.

Plasmonic sensing cannot be used outside the lab as the instruments are bulky and expensive. Aydogan Ozcan, the professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering and Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute and his team has devised an inexpensive plasmonic reader which is mobile and accurate.

The machine learning technique adopted by the prototype allows a particular algorithm to ”train” itself to decide the course of action to be taken. It has a wide range of applications in other fields like the Optical Character Recognition. Google’s map software can learn to read numbers and letters on houses and streets accurately, another perfect example of an algorithm adapting to a particular data.

Different types of LED are used for plasmonic sensing prototype. The reader consists of four differently colored LEDs, a camera, and 3D printed plastic case. To use the device, a specimen is applied to the sensor, which is fitted into a casing inside the reader which is measured and analyzed. 3D printing technology allows the prototype to be made durable yet cost-effective and well-designed to adapt to different situations. Ozcan and his team members hope that their device sets a precedent for other researchers and scientists.