Manufacturing highly customized medical devices through multi-material inkjet 3D printing
Modern healthcare relies on medical devices, yet a large proportion of patients who receive one can suffer from infection or chronic inflammation that can require antibiotics and corrective surgery. It is becoming increasingly apparent that by selecting appropriate materials, we are able to designed medical devices with reduced failure rates. This paper exploited using the bacteria biofilm inhibition materials for multi-functional medical device production, meeting both cell response requirements and mechanical performance criteria. Here we achieved this using a combination of multi-material inkjet 3D printing (MM-IJ3DP) and genetic algorithms (GA). The key to this advance is that MM-IJ3DP allows us to spatially vary the material composition and thus include differentiated functions, while also providing the important scale up capabilities of high resolution and production speeds. This opens the possibility of a new manufacturing concept that allows the user to produce devices with spatially distributed, customizable material functionalities in a cost-effective manner.
The full article can be read in the journal Advanced Science.
Exploiting Generative Design for 3D Printing of Bacterial Biofilm Resistant Composite Devices
Yinfeng He, Meisam Abdi, Gustavo F. Trindade, Belén Begines, Jean-Frédéric Dubern, Elisabetta Prina, Andrew L. Hook, Gabriel Y. H. Choong, Javier Ledesma, Christopher J. Tuck, Felicity R. A. J. Rose, Richard J. M. Hague, Clive J. Roberts, Davide S. A. De Focatiis, Ian A. Ashcroft, Paul Williams, Derek J. Irvine, Morgan R. Alexander, Ricky D. Wildman.
Advanced Science 2021, 2100249
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202100249
Posted on Friday 23rd July 2021