WSU researchers use a 3-D printer to make bone-like material
Clears way for custom-made replacement tissue
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Using a 3D printer, Washington State
University Mechanical and Materials Engineering Professor Susmita Bose
created a bone‑like material that can be used for orthopedic and dental
work.
Shelly Hanks photo courtesy... |
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And it came off an inkjet printer.
Washington State University researchers have used a 3D printer to create a bone-like material and structure that can be used in orthopedic procedures, dental work, and to deliver medicine for treating osteoporosis. Paired with actual bone, it acts as a scaffold for new bone to grow on and ultimately dissolves with no apparent ill effects.
The authors report on successful in vitro tests in the journal Dental Materials and say they're already seeing promising results with in vivo tests on rats and rabbits. It's possible that doctors will be able to custom order replacement bone tissue in a few years, says Susmita Bose, co-author and a professor in WSU's School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.
"If a doctor has a CT scan of a defect, we can convert it to a CAD file and make the scaffold according to the defect," Bose says.
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IMAGE:
Washington State University researchers
used a 3‑D printer to make a variety of bone‑like materials, including
pieces of hip bone. |
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The printer works by having an inkjet spray a plastic binder over a bed of powder in layers of 20 microns, about half the width of a human hair. Following a computer's directions, it creates a channeled cylinder the size of a pencil eraser.
After just a week in a medium with immature human bone cells, the scaffold was supporting a network of new bone cells.
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The research was funded with a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Video of Bose discussing her work can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvkfMu76drE.
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