Fusion Implants, a spin-out company from the University of Liverpool, will use cash from The North West Fund for Venture Capital to 3D print a portion of the tibia on dogs with cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) disease. Rupture of the CCL remains one of the most common orthopedic problems seen in veterinary practices around the world. It causes hind knee pain, lameness and arthritis, if left untreated.
The last time I saw Dr Chris Sutcliffe was last summer at the International Conference on AM and 3D Printing, when he was doing his best grumpy old man impression. The grumpiness then was a result of frustrated efforts to commercialise a long running project that had seen Chris and team develop a design and manufacturing process specifically for veterinary implants. Chris’ frown has subsequently turned upside down as his vision looks set to be realized. Chris is a Director of Liverpool-based Fusion Implants, the company that is now bringing metal 3D printed canine implants to market, with the aim of supplying veterinarian surgeries with improved devices for canine knee-reconstruction that ameliorates mobility of injured or lame dogs dramatically.
The world is a complex system of biodiversity, individual components interacting, giving and taking from one another. As we begin to truly understand this concept, we can begin to harness the power of living in symbiosis with our environment. Take seaweed, for instance. Researchers at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia have been exploring the use of seaweed in 3D printed medical implants.
A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder — which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches — has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant. Read more →
Life can be tough for the creatures that haven’t reincarnated themselves to full-human status, yet. Without opposable thumbs and kick-ass forebrains, it’s almost impossible to invent new technologies or even perform basic medical care. And, so, animals are left hobbling around with fractured fins and broken beaks. Researchers at North Carolina State University’s Laboratory for Additive Manufacturing and Logistics know that nature’s cute critters are vulnerable and need humans to provide them with tender lovin’ care. So, in their pursuit of AM applications over the past ten years, they’ve saved more than a few animal lives.
Many fellow fans of 3D Printing will have already read about the 14-month-old boy, Roland Lian Cung Bawi, whose life was recently saved at Kosair Children’s Hospital with the help of 3D Printing.
JASON BARNES had wanted to be a professional drummer since he was a teenager. But when he lost his arm in a freak accident he thought his dream was over. Now he has a second chance at the big time – thanks to a brand new robotic arm.
Barnes lost the lower half of his right arm two years ago, after getting an electric shock while cleaning a vent hood in a restaurant. But he refused to give up on his musical dream, so he built a simple drumming device out of a brace and some springs that attached to his arm. Although Barnes couldn’t play quite as adeptly as before the accident, he was able to enrol at theAtlanta Institute of Music and Media in Georgia, and to make plans for a future career in music.
A British surgeon has used 3D scanning and 3D printing techniques to create a new pelvis for a patient who had lost the whole right side of his pelvis to cancer.
The patient in his sixties had been diagnosed with a rare bone tumour called chondrosarcoma. “Since this cancer does not respond to drugs or radiotherapy, the only option was to remove half of the pelvis,” said Craig Gerrand to Telegraph, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust.
The BIOFABRIS is a National Institute of S&T in Biomanufacturing of multidisciplinary,
located at the Chemical Engineering Campus of UNICAMP, character that aims to integrate computational tools, synthesis and development of new biomaterials and application of engineering techniques to obtain biomedical devices (prostheses and orthopedic orthoses) and substitutes for live biological tissues or defective or missing human organs.