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Lets get real: what can we bioprint? Materials

by Medical

Inaccurate reports on bioprinting functional organs run the risk of raising false expectations within the public, with the inevitable “let downs” that follow. These are made even more intense by the “life and death” nature of some organ transplants. Yet, bioprinting is opening up some truly amazing possibilities in the field of regenerative medicine and stem cell-derived tissues, that could result in significant life expectancy and quality of life improvements. A detailed paper published on Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, by a team of researchers at the University of Victoria, analyzes the state of bioprinting with stem cells to accurately answer the questions on many people’s minds: what can we bioprint today? And what can we achieve in the foreseeable future in terms of regenerative medicine applications?

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EnvisionTEC and EasyRx now offer integrated orthodontic software solution Marketing and Content

by Medical

EnvisionTEC and EasyRx, a developer of orthodontic prescription software, today announced the integration of their software for ease of use. EasyRx allows users to submit, manage and track orthodontic lab prescriptions, including preparing and labeling them for 3D printing. Now, EasyRx users can simply launch an STL file in EnvisionTEC’s Perfactory software by clicking the EnvisionTEC logo within EasyRx. Users can now go from digital scan to 3D print faster than ever before.

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EnvisionTEC, CollPlant and Medtronic making big moves in medical, dental AM, bioprinting Medical

by Medical

With lots of exciting additive manufacturing industry news coming in last week from RAPID+TCT and Hannover Messe, this week seems to be dominated by another industry: the medical sector. So far, we’ve seen new 3D printed implants from Medtronic, EnvisionTEC partnerships and financial announcements from CollPlant from the medical tech, dental and bioprinting fields. Find today’s highlights below:

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Progressing orthopedic implants with additive manufacturing Medical

by Medical

Looking back over the last decade, it is clear from the vantage point of 2017 that additive manufacturing (AM) has caused significant disruption in the medical sector. Indeed, in no other sector has AM had such a profound and dramatic effect on the human condition in terms of improving lives — whether directly at the point of need within clinical environments or communities or indirectly as a manufacturing method for greatly improved medical devices. Currently, despite the direct approach dominating many ‘3D Printing’ headlines as surgeons and clinicians increasingly embrace the AM systems at the point of need for patient-specific applications, it is the latter, indirect approach, that has seen significant results for higher volume, serial production with AM by medical device manufacturers.