As explained on Hongkiat.com by Brian Voo on his article “20 Amazing Creations you Can Make With 3D Printing”, “3D printing is made possible by fusing layers upon layers of materials made from durable plastics and metals based on a template, designed with a 3D computer Aided Design (CAD) software. With this technology, and a 3D printer, you can create designs or print 3D models of just about anything under the sun.”
Innovating:
3D Printed prosthetics
working projects
There are various cases of people and organizations that have different projects working towards creating 3D prosthetic human parts. Here are a few.
• Organovo is a company that designs functional human tissues with the bioprinting technology, they have created three-dimensional tissues that repair or replace tissues in the human body and they have been giving researchers the opportunity to test different drugs on functional human tissues and for them to be able to clear any doubts they have before giving the resources to the clinics. They are currently working on creating a functional liver for a human transplant.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has been looking for alternatives and has found some professors that are looking to develop prosthetics to help the disabled people in Uganda. The WHO are looking to created a semi-automated process that will serve to increase the access to prosthetics.
• In 2013, researchers in China were able to print a working kidney that lasted four months, in the US, a child was fitted with a plastic windpipe infused with her stem cells made using a 3D printer because she had burn wounds.
• A project called Project Daniel’s inspiration comes from a bombing there was in Sudan, a 14-year-old boy named Daniel had both arms injured, a soldier rescued him and the Not Impossible organization helped Daniel. This organization is working on building confidence in people again by giving them 3D printed prosthetics.
Even animals have gotten the opportunity to get prosthetic organs!
Various injured ducks have gotten prosthetic leg because of unfortunate accidents, for example, Dudley, a five-month-old duck had a fight with some chickens and his foot hell off. Terence Loring, a Kamloops designer made him a brand new leg using 3D printing technology.
Some people believe that 3D printing is silly but some think it is one of the best inventions of the century. The 3D printing process has potential to transform lives, not only by giving tools for people to work with but by giving people pieces that can replace human body parts.
As said by Harrison Jacobs from Business Insider in his article called “A UK Surgeon Successfully 3D Printed And Implanted A Pelvis” on February 17th, 2014,
“3D printing is revolutionizing the health care sector; the technology has been successfully used to make prosthetic limbs, custom hearing aids, … a pelvis, and potentially human tissue by what is called 'bioprinting.'” Bioprinting is the process of generating controlled cell patterns in 3D.
That’s right! 3D printed prosthetics are now available for people who need artificial body parts. There now exist 3D printed prosthetic eyes, face parts, human tissues, organs, and limbs.