Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Equipment for development of a novel and customized additive manufacturing (3D printing) workstation for producing heterogeneous soft tissues/implants, extracorporeal devices and prostheses

<p>This Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) proposal aims at establishing a novel and customized in-house additive manufacturing (AM) workstation. This critical workstation will allow us to fabricate anatomically-shaped soft tissues/implants, wearable devices and prostheses with heterogeneous internal properties/architectures such as variable density, variable soft materials, conformal channels and varying porosity. The requested components of this novel workstation will establish a critical platform, enabling the group to remove several major obstacles hindering the development of the abovementioned devices. This highly needed setup will add a new dimension to the fabrication of anatomically-shaped soft medical devices by enabling the following capabilities: (i) incorporation of different polymers and soft bio-materials across structures with different viscosities, (ii) creation of conformal passages, (iii) creation of controlled, pre-determined density distributions in desired orientations, (iv) selective injection of polymeric elements on planar and non-planar surfaces, and (v ) insertion of a sacrificial porogen material to control the level of macro-porosity in desired regions of the structures.</p> <p > This unique AM workstation will be adaptable to a variety of soft materials (e.g., silicone and hydrogels) with different viscosities. The capabilities offered by the integrated system will be central to the ongoing research programs of the applicants, in which innovative approaches are being applied to develop artificial implants, including biological biphasic joints based upon tissue engineering fundamentals, an artificial wearable and potentially implantable kidney, and silicone-based prostheses. </p> <p > At the moment, there is no commercially available additive manufacturing machine to make bio-structures from soft materials such as silicone and hydrogels with variable properties. These limitations have substantially blocked further development of AM-made implants/devices. The concept of AM of soft materials/tissues with heterogeneous properties is novel, thus the proposed AM workstation will be unique in the world. There is therefore high potential to file for a patent and pursue the commercialization of the developed AM system. </p> <p > This innovative setup will enable and accelerate the development of the above medical devices, for which the global market value is approximately $12.5 billion. Since the proposed AM workstation will be adaptable to various soft materials, it will be an attractive system for several research groups in North America and Europe involved in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The outputs of the enabled projects and the HQP trained will contribute significantly to Canadian health research and health care, and lead to direct improvements in human health, well-being and longevity. </p>