Three-Dimensional (3D) printing methods enable distributed manufacturing, mass customization and rapid prototyping of medical devices. The tutorial "3D Printing Methods for Medical Applications" seeks to impart information to the audience on the use of 3D printing methods to process polymer, metal, ceramic and biological materials. This course includes coverage of 3D printing principles, advantages of 3D printing over traditional subtractive manufacturing processes, materials for 3D printing, 3D printing methods and applications of 3D printing.

8:30 am
3D Printing Technologies for Healthcare
Roger Narayan

Laser-based processes may be used for additive manufacturing and bioprinting of structures with unique microscale and nanoscale structures. We have demonstrated use of matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation- direct write for layer-by-layer processing of cells and scaffold materials. Three-dimensional patterning of cells and cell-scaffold composites have been demonstrated using this approach. We have also recently examined additive manufacturing of three-dimensional structures using two-photon polymerization. In two-photon polymerization, ultrashort laser pulses are used to selectively polymerize photosensitive resins and form complex microscale and/or nanoscale structures. The nonlinear nature of two-photon absorption enables polymerization of structures with features below the diffraction limit. Recent medical applications of two-photon polymerization have involved fabrication of microneedle arrays and scaffolds for tissue engineering. Our results indicate that matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation- direct write and two-photon polymerization are attractive techniques for additive manufacturing and bioprinting, respectively.

9:30 am BREAK

10:00 am
Printing Cells: Process Challenges and Application
Wei Sun

Three-Dimensional (3D) Bio-Printing uses cells and biomaterials as building blocks to fabricate personalized 3D structures or functional in vitro biological models. The technology has been widely applied to regenerative medicine, disease study and drug discovery. This presentation will report our recent research on printing cells for construction of micro-organ chips and for building in vitro 3D tumor models.  An overview of advances of 3D Bio-Printing will be given. Enabling methods for cell printing will be described. Examples for 3D Printing of a tissue engineering model, a drug metabolism model and a disease model will be reported, along with results of printing parameters on cell viability and 3D tumor structural formation, characterization of cell morphologies, proliferations, protein expressions and chemoresistances. Comparison of biological data derived from 3D printed models with 2D planar petri-dish models will be conducted. Discussions on challenges and opportunities of 3D Bio-Printing will also be presented.

11:00 am
3D Printing of Hard Biomaterials
Amit Bandyopadhyay

Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP) or Additive manufacturing (AM) is an approach to process parts directly from its computer-aided design (CAD) file. AM is changing the landscapes of current industrial practices. On-demand manufacturing using 3DP technologies is a new trend that will significantly influence many industries and product design protocols. Since there is no need for any part-specific tooling, different parts can be built using the same machine. Most of these parts are near net-shape and require only a small finishing operation. Unlike even 10 years back, when most of these 3DP produced parts were used for touch and feel, and design optimization, functional parts via additive manufacturing is becoming common in most industrial sectors.

We have worked on additive manufacturing of hard materials, primarily metals and ceramics, over the last two decades. We have used fused deposition modeling, laser engineered net shaping and powder-bed-based 3D printing processes. Using these 3DP approaches, we have manufactured parts with compositional, functional and structural gradation mostly for space and biomedical applications. I will focus on some of the key success stories from our research, as well as current challenges in the field.

Instructors

• Roger Narayan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University
• Wei Sun, Drexel University and Tsinghua University
• Amit Bandyopadhyay, Washington State University