In this extract from Print Shift, our one-off publication about 3D printing, editor Claire Barrett reports on the growing number of medical applications for the emerging technology and asks how soon we can expect 3D-printed organ transplants.

Imagine printing a human liver. Or a kidney. One day this will be possible, and with a desperate global shortage of organs for transplant, the medical industry is pouring resources into developing technologies that will make this a reality.

"Eighteen people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant," says Michael Renard, executive vice president for commercial operations at San Diego-based Organovo, one of the companies that is leading the way in tissue engineering.

There is a huge amount of excitement around the potential for printing human tissue. Dr Anthony Atala, director at North Carolina's Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, received a standing ovation at a 2011 TED talk where he printed a prototype human kidney live on stage using living cells. Although a fully functioning kidney for transplant is many years away, Atala's primitive organ produces a urine-like substance.

Like other forms of 3D printing, living tissue is printed layer by layer. First a layer of cells is laid down by the printer, followed by a layer of hydrogel that operates as a scaffold material; then the process repeats. The cells fuse, and the hydrogel is removed to create a piece of material made entirely of human cells. This is then moved to a bioreactor, where the tissue continues to grow – as it would in nature – into its final form.

"Our approach is consistent with other forms of 3D printing because it's an additive process," says Renard, "but what is unique is our application of the process in the field of cell biology and tissue engineering."

Currently it is possible to print small pieces of tissue; the problem lies in scaling this and creating a vascular system that delivers oxygen to the cells and removes carbon dioxide. Without this, the cells will die.

In reality, printed organs are a long way away. "In the next 10 years it is possible that [printed] supplemental tissues, ones that aid in regeneration – such as nerve grafts, patches to assist a heart condition, blood vessel segments or cartilage for a degenerating joint – will make it to the clinic," says Renard. "But more advanced replacement tissues will most likely be in 20 years or more."

However, scientists believe that strips of printed tissue will soon be advanced enough to be used to test new drugs. These risk-free tests will help determine whether drugs should move forward to expensive human clinical trials.

Alongside human tissue, 3D printing is being used to develop body parts. In February, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, announced it had used 3D printing to create an artificial ear for treating a congenital deformity called microtia, where the ear is underdeveloped, or for those who'd lost part of an ear to cancer or an accident.

An alternative to painful rib grafts, which result in ears that neither function well nor look natural, a normal ear is scanned and a mould made by a 3D printer. Collagen is injected into the mould, which acts as a scaffold in the formation of cartilage. The hope is that human trials could take place within three years.

Although this work is headline-grabbing, 3D printing is already common within the healthcare realm. It is used to custom-print hearing aids, and as an alternative to fixed dental braces. Every day, Invisalign – a company that offers a 3D-printed alternative to fixed braces – prints 60,000 sets of transparent custom-made moulds that the wearer changes every two weeks to realign the teeth.

Additive manufacturing is also being used as a visualisation tool to pre-plan surgery. For instance, a heart or fractured leg bone can be scanned and printed to allow the surgeon to intimately understand the anatomy before performing an operation. Surgeons today are using bespoke printed drill and saw guides, which, once the body is opened up, are dropped into place to ensure accurate orientation of the drill in such procedures as hip or knee replacements.

More dramatically, additive manufacturing was used in 2011 to create an entirely new lower jaw for an 83-year-old woman whose own was destroyed by a chronic infection and who was considered too old to sustain reconstructive surgery. Printed in titanium powder by Dutch company LayerWise and only a third heavier than the original, it was covered in bioceramic, a material that ensures the body doesn't reject the implant. Cavities in the printed jaw allowed for muscle reattachment and grooves for the regrowth of nerves.

3D printing has been used for pioneering work within foetal medicine, too. In 2009, Brazilian designer and Royal College of Art PhD student Jorge Lopes introduced the use of 3D printing to create models of unborn children within the womb. Lopes used MRI scans "to see inside the belly of a pregnant woman," he says.

These 3D-printed models are now commonly used to help explain foetal abnormalities to parents, or necessary surgical procedures once the child is born. Most recently Lopes printed out a 3D model of an unborn child for two visually impaired parents who were unable to see their child through regular ultrasound imagery. "It was a very emotional moment," he says.

Inevitably such technologies will reach the mainstream. Since last year, Japanese 3D-printing company Fasotec has offered its Shape of an Angel service to expectant parents at a Toyko clinic. For 100,000 yen parents can receive a 3D-printed model of the foetus inside the womb. The mother's body is printed in clear resin, with the foetus in white.

3D printing also has huge potential to help disability. Magic Arms is shortlisted for the Design Museum’s Design of the Year 2013, and enables Emma Lavelle, a child born with arthrogryposis, to use her arms, a function that was previously impossible. Magic Arms is Emma’s nickname for the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), an assistive device made up of a bespoke butterfly-patterned jacket and arms that are 3D-printed in durable ABS plastic.

The design was originally made with CNC technology for patients older than two-year-old Emma, but 3D printing enabled it to be translated into a smaller version that is light enough for Emma to wear and take everywhere. If a piece breaks, her mother can simply photograph the broken element and a new one is printed out and sent through the post.

The technology is similarly revolutionising prosthetics. The manufacturer Bespoke Innovations produces Fairings, a 3D-printed covering that can be personalised and worn around the existing prosthetic. Typically a prosthetic will exist either as naked hardware – essentially a pipe – or covered with foam in an attempt to match skin tone and tissue density. "This is the first time there’s been a third option," says founder and industrial designer Scott Summit.

The sound leg is 3D-scanned to ensure body symmetry, and a customised design is 3D-printed to achieve the basic Fairing. This can then be wrapped in different materials such as leather, which can be laser tattooed, and parts can be coated in metal to achieve a final bespoke design that the owner is proud to wear. "The Fairing is just a way that somebody might message to the world, 'Hey, look, it's fine,'" he says.

The greatest benefit of putting 3D printing and 3D scanning together is "that you can start getting rid of the one-size-fits-all mentality," says Summit. While a "small, medium, large universe", as Summit prefers to call it, is perfectly fine for the most part, when you have specific needs – such as a prosthetic limb or a bone defect – the opportunity to personalise your healthcare is tremendous. At a time when healthcare is moving away from the standardised model that developed after the Second World War, 3D printing looks set to be right at the heart of this revolution.

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to 3D-print a human liver" appeared first on Dezeen.

Unlike normal 3D printers that require a flat and horizontal base, Mataerial prints with plastic that sticks to horizontal, vertical, smooth or irregular surfaces, without the need for additional support structures.

Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić from Barcelona's Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia worked with the studio of Dutch designer Joris Laarman to develop the machine and system.

The process, which the designers call "anti-gravity object modelling", is a form of extrusion that instantly creates chunky three-dimensional rods, rather than slowly building up two-dimensional layers like a standard 3D printer.

"One of the key innovations of anti-gravity object modelling is the use of thermosetting polymers instead of thermoplastics that are used in existing 3D printers," explained the designers.

A chemical reaction between the two components of the thermosetting polymer causes the material to solidify as it comes out of the nozzle, making it possible to print hanging curves.

The speed of extrusion is dependent on factors such as the desired thickness of the material, but in this example the printer produced one metre in approximately three minutes. The movie's frame rate was increased up to three times to show the process more quickly.

We recently featured a similar idea on a much smaller scale – a pen that can "print" 3D doodles in mid-air. See all 3D printing on Dezeen or check out Print Shift, our one-off magazine about additivie manufacturing.

Last year Novikov was part of a team of students from the IAAC who built a robotic 3D printer that creates architectural structures from sand or soil.

Joris Laarman's 2006 Bone chaise and mould design was acquired by the V&A museum in London last year – see all design by Joris Laarman.

Here's some more information from the design team:

Mataerial is the result of the collaborative research between Petr Novikov, Saša Jokić from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Joris Laarman Studio. IAAC tutors representing Open Thesis Fabrication Program provided their advice and professional expertise. During the course of the research we developed a brand new digital fabrication method and a working prototype that can open a door to a number of practical applications. The method that we call Anti-gravity Object Modeling has a patent-pending status.

Mataerial – a brand new method of additive manufacturing. This method allows for creating 3D objects on any given working surface independently of its inclination and smoothness, and without a need of additional support structures. Conventional methods of additive manufacturing have been affected both by gravity and printing environment: creation of 3D objects on irregular or non-horizontal surfaces has so far been treated as impossible. By using innovative extrusion technology we are now able to neutralise the effect of gravity during the course of the printing process. This method gives us a flexibility to create truly natural objects by making 3D curves instead of 2D layers. Unlike 2D layers that are ignorant to the structure of the object, the 3D curves can follow exact stress lines of a custom shape. Finally, our new out of the box printing method can help manufacture structures of almost any size and shape.

One of the key innovations of anti-gravity object modelling is the use of thermosetting polymers instead of thermoplastics that are used in existing 3D printers. The material is cured because of a chemical reaction between two source components with such proportion of extrusion and movement speeds that it comes solid out of the nozzle; this feature makes it possible to print hanging curves without support material.

The desired shape is created by user in CAD software and then transformed into 3d curves describing the shape which are then converted into movement paths for the robotic arm. The thickness of the printed curve can be scaled down to less than a millimeter and can be adjusted during the printing process, by changing the speed of the movement. Colors can be injected in the nozzle in CMYK mode that allows changing of the curve color throughout the printing process.

In our vision, Mataerial can be applied in different fields, from furniture and architecture manufacturing to desktop and space 3d printing.

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Joris Laarman Studio and IAAC appeared first on Dezeen.

In this article from Print Shift, our one-off magazine about additive manufacturing, Dezeen's Ben Hobson asks how soon we could be tucking into 3D-printed steaks.

The concept of 3D-printed food is hard to swallow, but technology that could revolutionise the way we cook is hotting up.

In 2009, Philips Design presented a sci-fi vision of the future with a conceptual food printer that could produce a perfectly balanced meal at the touch of a few buttons. Part of a research project called Food Probe, which looked at how we might source and eat food in 15 to 20 years’ time, the imagined machine would allow our future selves to print out our ideal combinations of flavours and nutrients in an unlimited range of forms.

It sounded too Star Trek to be true (as Dezeen readers were quick to point out when we originally ran the story). But with 3D-printing technologies advancing as rapidly as they are, the idea may not be as far off as it once seemed.

Philips itself is not developing a 3D food printer, but companies around the world are starting to take the concept seriously. Janne Kyttanen has been at the forefront of 3D-printing technology for many years and he believes food is next on the list to be revolutionised by 3D printing. "We have many different avenues in which 3D printing technology is moving. We’ve explored all different kinds of products and different materials," he says. "Food is the next frontier."

Kyttanen has already 3D-printed an experimental hamburger and a breakfast cereal in novelty shapes, including his own head, but these are merely conceptual models of plastic and plaster. "I wanted to pinch people a little bit. I printed burgers just to create an iconic image and make people realise that one day we will be able to 3D-print a hamburger."

But while the 3D-printed burger of the future is some way off, the transition from printing with plastics to printing with food has already begun. In 2011 Luis Fraguada, research director at architecture studio Built By Associative Data, was using a desktop 3D printer to produce prototypes of customised crockery when he was approached by a young chef called Paco Morales, who asked him a question: if you can print out a plate, could you also print out a piece of food onto that plate?

Fraguada and Morales, together with architects Deniz Manisali, José Ramón Tramoyeres and Andrés Arias Madrid – who collectively make up the research group Robots In Gastronomy – have been working on a 3D food printer ever since.

Their machine uses an adapted version of the same fused deposition modelling technology that’s commonly used to print plastics: food is extruded through a nozzle and built up in layers to the specified design. "We started with a MakerBot," Fraguada explains. "We put in our own print head to let us print out viscose food materials."

The nature of the technology means the printer is limited to creating customised 3D shapes out of soft or puréed foodstuffs such as mascarpone, guacamole or chocolate spread; Fraguada soon discovered that "Nutella is the perfect material for printing". But he believes the potential for the technology extends far beyond simple novelty value.

"For me, it’s interesting to think about the possibilities for somebody with specific dietary requirements – someone who needs to precisely measure out certain types of food, for example. Nutrition is the root of many of our medical problems, globally. My hope is that at some point we will have more control over the elements that we put into our bodies."

It’s not just designers who are exploring the possibilities of 3D-printed food. Scientists at Cornell University’s Creative Machines Lab in Ithaca, New York, have developed an open-source desktop 3D printer called Fab@Home, which, using a similar extrusion-based technology, can print with plastic as well as cake mixture, icing and peanut butter.

They have also experimented with meat, but that proved to be much trickier. "We know from the flavouring industry that we can make anything taste like anything, and we know from the colouring industry that we can make anything look like anything," Cornell scientist Jeffrey Lipton says. "But if food doesn’t have the right feel to it, if it feels too processed, people have a gut reaction against it."

Nobody wants to eat a gloopy steak, basically. But Lipton has enjoyed some success with using meat as a print material. In 2010 he was able to print various types of puréed meat into shapes that were then deep-fried, including a scallop printed into the shape of a space shuttle, which was, Lipton assures, "absolutely delicious". The key was to combine the puréed meat with an enzyme called transglutaminase, which helps the proteins reconnect and the meat to regain its texture. Lipton believes that with the necessary scientific research, we will one day be able to take the next step and print foodstuffs like meat "from the ground up".

In fact, the research is already well underway. American company Modern Meadow 
was set up in 2012 with the specific goal to develop in vitro meat and leather products for which no animal has to die. The idea is to use the same bioprinting technology that is being developed in the medical industry to grow transplantable human tissue, but to produce meat for human consumption instead.

Modern Meadow is still a development-stage company, and it has put no time frame on when the meat it hopes to produce will be available to buy. But it has the money behind it to succeed; PayPal co-founder and billionaire Peter Thiel is an investor.

There are others willing to put money behind 3D-printed food. Kjeld van Bommel is a research scientist at Dutch contract research organisation TNO, which works with some of the world’s biggest food companies, and he says they are interested. "We’re actually doing projects with some international companies, big food companies, that see a future for 3D-printed food," he says.

Unfortunately these projects are all top secret. But there is one project van Bommel is free to discuss. TNO is helping to develop a food printer as part of an EU-backed project aiming to improve the lives of people suffering from a condition called dysphagia, which causes chewing and swallowing problems. By removing the usual pleasures of eating, the condition often leads to malnutrition.

The machine TNO is developing will combine puréed foodstuffs with a special gelatine binding agent, and print them out in 3D shapes that are soft enough to be eaten. "We’re going to print a piece of chicken and we’re going to print a potato," van Bommel explains. "People will get a plate of food in front of them that they can eat with a knife and fork, rather than having a milkshake three times a day. It’s already been shown that people eat better when they do that."

The printer will work much like a 2D inkjet, printing out food in droplets and building up a 3D structure layer by layer. Crucially, just like the food printer conceived by Philips Design, its output will be completely customisable. "The food will be personalised," van Bommel enthuses. "The number of calories will be personalised. Nutrients like calcium or omega-3 fatty acids will be personalised as well. Even the softness or hardness of the food will be tuned to the needs of the client. Everyone will get their own personalised plate of food in front of them."

This printer is not a far-off fantasy. The project started in 2012, and if it stays on schedule, they’ll have a working prototype within three years. Van Bommel believes it will only take another couple of years after that before a commercial product is available.

Of course, while the softness of the food it will produce has obvious benefits for those suffering from swallowing disorders, most people would not want to eat it.

Nevertheless, as the technology continues to advance, and with companies with the 
necessary financial muscle starting to get behind 3D-printed food, a food printer of the kind Philips Design imagined seems a significant step closer to becoming reality.

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3D-print a hamburger" appeared first on Dezeen.

News: blueprints for the world's first 3D-printed gun have been taken offline at the request of the US government.

Defense Distributed, the Texas-based group that developed the weapon, stated on Twitter that its project to make a downloadable and printable gun had "gone dark".

The State Department's order to remove the files comes just a few days after the successful test firing of the pistol, called the Liberator.

The group's file-sharing website Defcad is now headed with a red banner that reads: "Defcad files are being removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information."

Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old law student who leads Defense Distributed, said he complied with the State Department's request immediately.

"But this is a much bigger deal than guns. It has implications for the freedom of the web," he told technology website Betabeat.

According to Defense Distributed, blueprints for the gun were downloaded over 100,000 times in the two days after they were uploaded to Defcad.

However, the decision to remove the files represents a U-turn on the group's earlier promise, made in a video announcing the launch of Defcad in March, that there would be "no takedowns, ever".

The group has been working towards creating a 3D-printed gun for almost a year after raising $20,000 of funding for the "Wiki Weapon" open source project.

Defcad was launched this March as "the world's first unblockable, open-source search engine for all 3D-printable parts", such as components for rifles, pistols and grenades.

Dezeen investigated how 3D printing is changing weaponry and warfare in Print Shift, our one-off publication about 3D printing – see all news about 3D printing.

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Following today's news that the first 3D-printed gun has been fired, Dezeen reporter Emilie Chalcraft takes a look at how 3D-printed guns and drones are changing weaponry and warfare in this extract from Print Shift, our one-off publication about 3D printing.

There's a dark side to additive manufacturing. It could transform warfare and put homemade guns in the hands of criminals.

Always quick to find a use for cutting-edge technology, military scientists are deploying 3D printers on the front line to produce everything from gun components to unmanned aircraft. The US Army has been taking the lead, even going so far as to develop its own 3D printer as an alternative to commercial models.

Last July, the first mobile 3D-printing lab arrived in Afghanistan, allowing soldiers to repair their equipment quickly and cheaply, rather than wait weeks for spare parts to be delivered. “We can generate replacement parts with a device small and light enough to be carried in a backpack,” says D. Shannon Berry, an operations research analyst in the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.

Soon, frontline soldiers could be printing entire weapons or even aircraft. Engineers from MITRE, a corporation that carries out research for US government agencies, recently teamed with University of Virginia students to design, print and fly a smartphone-controlled drone, at a cost of just a few thousand dollars.

“I absolutely see 3D-printed drones being the norm in the not-too-distant future,” says University of Sheffield academic Neil Hopkinson, who’s been researching additive manufacturing since the 1990s and believes the military will be one of the first sectors to benefit from the technology. “One of the beauties of additive manufacturing is its diversity of applications. Within the military, I see it being used to make everything from personalised shoe soles to parts for vehicles.”

But if it’s so easy for soldiers to print gun parts, what’s to stop civilians from doing the same? Last year, US hobbyist Michael Guslick attached a 3D-printed plastic lower receiver – the only part of a gun that actually requires a licence in the US – to an AR-15 rifle before firing off 200 test-rounds. Meanwhile libertarian activists Defense Distributed announced plans to disseminate blueprints for a homemade DIY gun. Led by Texan law student Cody Wilson, the group aims to develop a fully printable plastic firearm adapted for basic desktop 3D printers [unveiled this week] and is already sharing files for individual components through its DEFCAD web forum.

The increased accessibility of 3D printing technology is a “double-edged sword”, says Ronen Kadushin, a pioneer of the open-design philosophy, which aims to turn industrial design into a networked community unhindered by ownership and copyright restrictions. “It’s frightening for governments now, because it means the total dissemination of arms into the community. You can print ammunition for your own army.” Kadushin predicts that amateur designers could eventually suffer the same vilification as computer hackers do today. “All you need is one person to make a 3D-printed weapon and kill somebody with it. This is a very dangerous situation.”

Neil Hopkinson is less convinced of the threat posed by hobbyists. “The costs of the equipment, and the levels of skill and expertise you’re going to need, are high,” he says. “Those sorts of things just aren’t going to be accessible to the general public.”

Looking further into the future, Liam Young, co-founder of design and research studio Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, suggests digital piracy could be an issue for the arms industry in the same way it has been for the entertainment industry. “Black-market economies will turn the illicit arms trade into a 3D-printed supply chain,” he suggests. “And these supply chains are going to be co-opted – not by Apple or Microsoft or whoever owns the digital rights to these weapons, but by organised-crime syndicates.

“It’s going to be complicated and messy,” he continues. “And it’s going to change things fundamentally – but perhaps not in the way we’re expecting.”

Main image: An AR-15 rifle, the weapon US hobbyist Michael Guslick managed to 3D-print a key part for last year, transforming it into a fully functioning firearm

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