MASSDEVICE ON CALL — New 3D printing technology has captured imaginations from NASA labs to art studios, but so-called "bio-printing" may be the revolution with the greatest direct human impact.
San Diego, Calif.-based Organovo Holdings’ bio-printer is making its start in 3D-printed diagnostic assays, but the future holds much bigger things. Organovo’s assays allow pharmaceutical companies to more thoroughly test liver toxicity, possibly avoiding costly delays or failures in new drug development, but those liver assays are a pathway to full-organ printing of the liver as well as other organs, Daily Finance reported.
Researchers can already bio-print living cells to make stem cell grafts, but those techniques and technologies could eventually help join nerves and muscles for more comprehensive and refined prosthetics. Prosthetics makers may one day print custom prosthetics from biomaterials or hybrid bio-mechanical systems.
Printing actual stem cells, instead of harvesting them, could further reduce the cost of stem-cell based therapies, expanding research and therapeutic use.
Medical devices manufactured by 3D printers have already made their entrance on the market with skull fragments, home-made plastic prosthetics and other preliminary technologies. The FDA earlier this year approved Tissue Regeneration Systems’ 3D-printed cranial bone void fillers, the 1st 3D-printed skeletal reconstruction implant to get a green light in the U.S.
U.S. earns few points for efficiency in healthcare spending
California researchers say that the U.S. ranks very low among industrialized nations for inefficient use of healthcare budgets, ranking the country 22nd out of 27 high-income countries when translating dollars spent into lives extended.
Read more
Cell phone cameras become microscopes with a few little tweaks
Finland researchers stripped web cameras and cell phone cameras of their imaging sensors, turning them into inexpensive microscopes with enough imaging power to detect a range of pathogenic parasites.
Read more
Dodging the biggest startup missteps
New companies can overcome some stumbles along the way, but certain mistakes can lead to the end for an emerging company, especially if the startup team is poorly constructed or if the team is unwilling or unable to keep up with the fast pace of changing technology.
Read more
Michigan gets its 1st minimally invasive brain surgeries
Henry Ford Hospital became the 1st in Michigan to perform minimally invasive laser brain surgery, treating a patient for epilepsy and another for a brain tumor. Both patients were able to leave the hospital 1 day after surgery.
Read more