News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
axial3D, a medical manufacturing service provider headquartered in Northern Ireland, is providing Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with an on-site 3D printing lab. Housed at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, one of six potential beneficiaries of the facility, the lab will be used to produced patient-specific models for pre-surgical planning.
Superstrata, the company founded by Arevo Labs to commercialize composite 3D printed bikes and e-bikes, has shipped the first Superstrata bike. The bike marks a significant milestone as it represents one of the very first continuous fiber-reinforced composites 3D printed consumer products ever to hit the market. As such it was highlighted by 3dpbm as one of the best 3D printed products of 2020.
At Formnext 2019 many were in awe seeing the very large LASERTEC 125 DED hybrid system from DMG Mori. This year there was no physical formnext but if DMG Mori could have shown its newest 3D printer it would have dwarfed it. The LASERTEC 6600 DED hybrid system is a behemoth with up to 1,040 mm on the X-axis, -280 mm to +330 mm on the Y-axis, 3,890 mm on the Z-axis. Yes you read correctly: that’s 4 meters (a bit more than 12 feet) on the Z axis.
With the new Cornwall Space Port and a growing number of space-bound projects (including Virgin Galactic), the UK is becoming a key hub for space exploration and tourism. Now the Satellite Applications Catapult, a UK-based technology and innovation company, is contributing to the space ecosystem’s growth by installing a new MetalFAB1 system from Additive Industries, as part of an investment from the Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership, through the Getting Building Fund. The machine will be installed at the Satellite Applications Catapult’s Disruptive Innovation for Space Centre (DISC) at Westcott Venture Park where it will be available for UK companies to use from July 2021.
3D Bioprinting Solutions, a Russian bio-technical research laboratory, has 3D bioprinted bone tissue in zero gravity on the International Space Station (ISS).
Rounding-off 2020, December saw the launch of various dental 3D printing products, as well as novel production processes, and the completion of significant business moves by Desktop Metal and Stratasys among others.
Scientists from the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center (HUG-CELL) University of São Paulo (USP), have utilized 3D bioprinting to develop functional hepatic organoids, otherwise known as mini-livers.
Australian med-tech company Anatomics has conducted a study on the benefits of 3D printed patient-specific medical models for pre-surgical planning.
Volumetric printing, as this network reported, has arrived in the form of the xolo xube, but this revolutionary technology already faces contenders for volumetric printing patents. A United States patent filed by Mr. Daniel Clark of Topshelf Enterprises (T3DP) and Southern Methodist University claims technology similar to xolo’s volumetric process. Mr. Clark points to his patent as occupying the field in which xolo has released a product.
GE Healthcare Life Sciences and Advanced Solutions Life Sciences (ASLS), a Kentucky-based biotechnology firm, are collaborating to build an integrated 3D bioprinter by combining their respective technologies.