Where is the 3D Printing Service Australian Industry Heading to in the Coming Years?

Innovative technology that has remained seated in the “dream stage” for some time, additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) is fast gaining genuine momentum, especially for use in the business environment. 

3D printer

Innovative technology that has been in the “dream stage” for some time, additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) is gaining genuine momentum, especially for use in the business environment. 

Remember those days when the 3D printing service Australian industry was still in its infancy stage?  The technology was so young then and many others were getting so excited about the Brooklyn Bridge miniature versions and cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse to hang on our bedroom walls. 

While it may be difficult to imagine, the first 3D printer was built in 1983, according to certain sources. In the ensuing years, technology has unquestionably progressed, with breakthroughs being disclosed on a nearly daily basis. However, the reality is that the 3D printing sector already appears to be considerably different from the way it was ten years ago. By 2030, it will be unrecognizably different from today.

 Fortunately, in this day and age, 3D printing is being used to address much broader issues and tackle complicated problems across a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, medicine, and even humanitarian relief.

3-dimensional printing, otherwise known also as additive manufacturing, works by layering materials to create an object. Rather than soldering and cutting, additive manufacturing smoothly adds layers to produce similar structures. Items produced with this method are also far more durable, lighter, heat-repelling, and more importantly, require only a few parts.

At the Forefront of Technological Improvements

Insiders in the business feel that additive manufacturing technology will be the catalyst for the greatest advancements in the sector. Speed will be increased in 3-dimensional printers in order to better accommodate larger, industrial-sized jobs in the future.

product manufacturing

According to Forbes, MELD Manufacturing successfully designed 3D printing machines for field use. This will help lay the groundwork for the application or use of additive manufacturing in unrestrained situations. Hence,  they’re likely to become even more beneficial in remote regions and allow for more 3D printed constructions.

3D printing service Australia industry aims to improve supply chain efficiency. Many businesses will implement additive manufacturing or 3D printing into their supply chain, with most products created on-demand and locally. They’re not necessarily made using additive manufacturing, but rather a melding together of various kinds of manufacturing technologies, including additive manufacturing.

3D printers will also increase versatility in other ways, such as the ability to print in a variety of materials, such as ceramics and metal, even within the same 3D printing equipment. When 3D printers can print one thing that contains several materials,

3D printers will not only increase the range of materials available, but they will also enable the use of multiple components, such as metal and even ceramics, within the same machine. When 3D printers are capable of printing a single object that is composed of multiple materials, the potential for new applications will be greatly boosted.

How Does a 3D Printing Machine Help in Elevating Bioprinting of Human Parts?

The working technology behind every 3D printing machine comes with a sundry of useful applications. 

One that holds so much promise nowadays and may also be holding the potential of unlocking many great breakthroughs is its possibility of creating materials that can be used significantly in medicine. 

Such materials may include medical devices that can be implanted into the human body as well as artificial parts or the so-called prosthetics materials. Industry experts have also seen the great potential of 3D printing technology in the simplification of the production of medical instruments. We are stepping a bit closer to the local printing of implantable human organs.  

Human Tissue and Organ Replacement

Right now, the medical community is in a state of admission that donated human organs they have in stock are not enough for everyone who will need them. What the global community hospitals and specialty health centers have right now will not suffice to the demand, let alone if a time comes that there is going to be a great surge of demand for it a crisis will be looming on the horizon. All that is due to the scarcity of human donors willing to donate their organs, for reasons that can’t be blamed to the people. 

With that kind of scenario in mind, replacing damaged organs made by 3D printing machines is no less to be considered as a wonderful groundbreaking thing to ever happen in the world of modern medicine. Right now, we are in the process of getting there, to that great possibility. 

The working idea behind this is to extract some cells first out of a patient’s own body for use in bioprinting a particular organ which they need. This measure will help in keeping the possibility of organ rejection at bay. 

Stem cells are usually harnessed for this purpose because they are qualified as unspecialized cells. This means to say they are capable of producing other types of cells provided you stimulate them the right way. 

3D

The printer will deposit the different types of cells and do that in the correct order. What most researches found out is that some types of human cells come with the amazing ability to conduct self-organization when they are deposited. This proves to be an amazing help in the process of bioprinting a human organ.  

Bioprinter machines are a type of 3D printer, and their primary purpose is to make living tissue. In the bioprinting process, one of the printer heads will print out the hydrogel to form a scaffold. Another printer head will print out thousands of cells incorporated into tiny droplets. After forming the desired structure, the scaffold hydrogel can be taken off by peeling away. In the case that it is water-soluble, then it can be washed away instead. Biodegradable scaffolds are also considered as a practical option to have since they will easily breakdown once inside a living body.  

Bioprinting Challenges

To produce a human organ that can be used for transplantation purposes is a difficult, herculean task. Human organs are complex structures. Usually, they are composed of different types of cells and the tissues that make them up are arranged in a very specific pattern. 

Human organs are also being formed during the embryonic development. At this point, they are being equipped with a chemical signaling system that makes it possible for them to develop their fine structures, and their collective behavior is properly developed. This element is what’s making the natural human organ distinct from 3D printed or artificially made organs.  

While there is a strong likelihood that it might take us a couple of more years more for us to become completely self-reliant on printing out implantable structures,  the first ones will have the single organ function instead of having it all. A simplified version of a human organ they may be but they are designed and created to compensate for what is ailing the body.  

The pace of research and development in this area, utilizing the great potential of 3D printing machine, the future of the bioprinting sphere in relation to medicine offer us a silver lining of hope.  

3D Printing Service Australia: Can the Industry Handle 3D bioprinting a prosthetic ovary

Can 3D printing service Australia industry now take on the challenges of 3D bioprinting? Is the country ready for what is ahead of us here?

Just recently, the scientific and the medical community celebrated a significant achievement, a milestone in the 3D bioprinting sphere when a group of remarkable scientists successfully found a way to create a 3D printed implantable artificial ovary. 

This is an important breakthrough in the field of 3D bioprinting because it can help infertile women bear a child, become pregnant and ultimately become a mother. 

What made this breakthrough distinct from many other developments in the 3D bioprinting sphere is the fact that the team recognized and mapped structural proteins inside a swine ovary. The discovery and identification of this protein are substantial because they found out they can use it in formulating the ink to be used in bioprinting the female human reproductive organ.  

What Can Damage Human Female Ovary? 

Several factors can contribute to damaged ovaries, this may include some physiological conditions such as Turner syndrome.  Sometimes cancer treatments can be detrimental to the female ovary, too, which is quite common among women who survived cancer.

Cancer treatments that are likely to put a woman’s power to conceive on the line would include radiotherapy and chemotherapy. 

The School of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg spearheaded this research, development of a 3D bio-printed prosthetic human ovary,  in the hope of finding an alternative way for women to get pregnant and eventually become a mother, despite having badly damaged ovaries. 

On-going Research for Prosthetic Ovary

Right this very moment, the said research is still a work in progress, the main objective of which is to bioprint a transplantable ovary and bring their new-found technology and process to perfection so that it will help in restoring the reproductive power of many infertile women. 

In 2017, the group had their biggest milestone  when they successfully 3D printed an artificial ovary of a mouse and implanted the same into a sterile specimen mouse. Subsequently, the sterile specimen mouse became pregnant and gave birth to a couple of litters. 

3D bioprinting

The success they had in 2017 was followed by another feat when they finally received their patent for their methodology on creating an artificial ovary. And only recently, they were able to figure out the strategic location of the said structural proteins inside a pig’s ovary. The team said that the pig ovary does have a close resemblance to the structural proteins of human ovaries.  

The structural proteins found inside the ovaries of pigs are identical to the type of proteins traceable in humans. This signifies its big potential in providing us an abundant source should we require a more complicated bio-ink material for 3D printing a human ovary for human use. 

We reckon that we are a step closer to being able to restore the hormone production and fertility of young women who had to survive childhood cancer but are likely to have early menopause as a subsequent effect. There is still a long way to go for the 3D printing service Australia in terms of 3D bioprinting, but these new sources of bio-ink are making things pretty exciting now.