[ExI] WSU researchers use a 3-D printer to make bone-like material

[Tomasz Rola]

Howdy,

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on the list.

(Article follows from here):

[ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/wsu-wru112911.php ]

Public release date: 29-Nov-2011
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 Contact: Susmita Bose
sbose at wsu.edu
 509-335-7461
Washington State University 
WSU researchers use a 3-D printer to make bone-like material 
Clears way for custom-made replacement tissue
				
		 

 IMAGE: 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...
Click here for more information. 
		
				



PULLMAN, Wash. -- It looks like bone. It feels like bone. For the most 
part, it acts like bone. 

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," 
				
		 

 IMAGE: Washington State University researchers used a 3‑D printer to 
make a variety of bone‑like materials, including pieces of hip bone.
Click here for more information. 
		
				


Bose says. 
				
		 

 IMAGE: Washington State University researchers used a 3‑D printer to 
make a variety of bone‑like materials, including pieces of hip bone.
Click here for more information. 
		
				



The material grows out of a four-year interdisciplinary effort involving 
chemistry, materials science, biology and manufacturing. A main finding of 
the paper is that the addition of silicon and zinc more than doubled the 
strength of the main material, calcium phosphate. Theresearchers also 
spent a year optimizing a commercially available ProMetal 3D printer 
designed to make metal objects. 

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. 
###

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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(Article ends here).

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **