Five-Year-Old Boy Becomes First Child in Pakistan to Receive a 3D Printed Prosthetic Hand.

In Pakistan, that moment came with the launch of Xplorer 3D, the first 3D printer manufacturer in the country, whose self-named printer began increasing the awareness and popularity of 3D printing in the region. Now, Xplorer 3D has become a facilitator for another first in Pakistan. Along with their authorized retailer Viscous.co and 3D printed prosthetics provider Bioniks, the company was able to help a young boy become the first child in the country to receive a 3D printed hand. Five-year-old Mir Bayyaan Baloch was born without his right hand, but thanks to the determination of his father and the support of those dedicated to improving lives through 3D printing, he now has the ability to do everything other children his age can do. When Bayyaan’s father, Mir Umer Baloch, began researching affordable prosthetics for his son online, one of the resources he came across was Team UnLimbited, aka Drew Murray and Stephen Davies of Britain. The two e-NABLE volunteers are the designers of the Unlimbited Arm, an elbow-driven prosthetic for individuals with a functional elbow and partial forearm but no wrist or hand. The design has become a popular option for children with missing arms, and it was a perfect option for Bayyaan, whose forearm stops right above where the wrist would be. Mir Umer Baloch reached out to Bioniks, who took on Bayyaan’s case as a special project. With an Xplorer 3D printer at NED University of Engineering and Technology, they carefully designed and printed an UnLimbited Arm in bright orange and yellow. It took some work and adjustment to fit the device to the boy’s small arm, but finally Bayyaan has a functional, comfortably fitting arm that he can use to grasp and hold objects, as well as shake hands and give high fives, which he seems visibly excited about. Read

Design and print your own 3-D chocolate objects.

3-D printing is a technology where a three dimensional object is created by building up successive layers of material. The technology is already used in industry to produce plastic and metal products but this is the first time the principles have been applied to chocolate. This new digital technology printer allows you to create your own designs on a computer and reproduce them physically in three dimensional form in chocolate. The project is funded as part of the Research Council UK Cross-Research Council Programme -- Digital Economy and is managed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on behalf of ESRC, AHRC and MRC. It is being led by the University of Exeter in collaboration with the University of Brunel and software developer Delcam Chocolate is not an easy material to work with because it requires accurate heating and cooling cycles. These variables then have to be integrated with the correct flow rates for the 3-D printing process. Researchers overcame these difficulties with the development of new temperature and heating control systems. Research leader Dr Liang Hao, at the University of Exeter, states that what makes this technology special is that users will be able to design and make their own products. In the long term it could be developed to help consumers custom- design many products from different materials but we've started with chocolate as it is readily available, low cost and non-hazardous. There is also no wastage as any unused or spoiled material can be eaten of course! From reproducing the shape of a child's favorite toy to a friend's face, the possibilities are endless and only limited by our creativity. Researchers hope that an online retail business will host a website for users to upload their chocolate designs for 3-D printing and delivery. Dr Hao added: "In future this kind of technology will allow people to produce and design many other products such as jewellery or household goods. Eventually we may see many mass produced products replaced by unique designs created by the customer." EPSRC Chief Executive Professor Dave Delpy said: "This is an imaginative application of two developing technologies and a good example of how creative research can be applied to create new manufacturing and retail ideas. By combining developments in engineering with the commercial potential of the digital economy we can see a glimpse into the future of new markets -- creating new jobs and, in this case, sweet business opportunities." source;Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). "Design and print your own 3-D chocolate objects.

REPLACEMENT TISSUE PRODUCED BY 3-D PRINTING.

The use of a sophisticated, custom-designed 3-D printer helps regenerative medicine scientists prove that it is feasible to print living tissue structures to replace injured or diseased tissue in patients. The scientists said they printed ear, bone and muscle structures. When implanted in animals, the structures matured into functional tissue and developed a system of blood vessels. Most importantly, these early results indicate that the structures have the right size, strength and function for use in humans. "This novel tissue and organ printer is an important advance in our quest to make replacement tissue for patients," said Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) and senior author on the study. "It can fabricate stable, human-scale tissue of any shape. With further development, this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation." Tissue engineering is a science that aims to grow replacement tissues and organs in the laboratory to help solve the shortage of donated tissue available for transplants. The precision of 3D printing makes it a promising method for replicating the body's complex tissues and organs. However, current printers based on jetting, extrusion and laser-induced forward transfer cannot produce structures with sufficient size or strength to implant in the body. A major challenge of tissue engineering is ensuring that implanted structures live long enough to integrate with the body. The Wake Forest Baptist scientists addressed this in two ways. They optimized the water-based "ink" that holds the cells so that it promotes cell health and growth and they printed a lattice of micro-channels throughout the structures. These channels allow nutrients and oxygen from the body to diffuse into the structures and keep them live while they develop a system of blood vessels. It has been previously shown that tissue structures without ready-made blood vessels must be smaller than 200 microns (0.007 inches) for cells to survive. In these studies, a baby-sized ear structure (1.5 inches) survived and showed signs of vascularization at one and two months after implantation. "Our results indicate that the bio-ink combination we used, combined with the micro-channels, provides the right environment to keep the cells alive and to support cell and tissue growth," said Atala. Another advantage of the ITOP system is its ability to use data from CT and MRI scans to "tailor-make" tissue for patients. For a patient missing an ear, for example, the system could print a matching structure. Several proof-of-concept experiments demonstrated the capabilities of ITOP. To show that ITOP can generate complex 3D structures, printed, human-sized external ears were implanted under the skin of mice. Two months later, the shape of the implanted ear was well-maintained and cartilage tissue and blood vessels had formed. To demonstrate the ITOP can generate organized soft tissue structures, printed muscle tissue was implanted in rats. After two weeks, tests confirmed that the muscle was robust enough to maintain its structural characteristics, become vascularized and induce nerve formation. And, to show that construction of a human-sized bone structure, jaw bone fragments were printed using human stem cells. The fragments were the size and shape needed for facial reconstruction in humans. To study the maturation of bioprinted bone in the body, printed segments of skull bone were implanted in rats. After five months, the bio printed structures had formed vascularized bone tissue. Story culled from science daily.