3-D printer makes scaffolding for growing bones

This project at Washington State University is incredibly nifty. Researchers use a 3-D printer to make a bone-like material that can temporarily do the job of bone, while serving as a scaffold for new bone to grow on. Over time, it dissolves safely.

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gijoel

I love living in the future.
- nyet
  
  Yes, can’t wait to have my own replicant
robdobbs

It’s the “dissolves safely” part I wonder about. Still, helovalot easier that cutting chunks off your hip and packing them next to some bone and hoping they grow like you want.
Brainspore

Adamantium or nothing.
- nyet
  
  Ya, but you have to have super good regenerative power first
  - Brainspore
    
    That’s what all the stem cell mumbo jumbo is for.
Dallas Moore

Here’s to regret free life, thanks to this miracle bone-itis cure.
Mantissa128

It’s interesting how flexible raster-print technology has turned out to be. It seems to be a very good general principle, like the wheel, that became practical with the marriage of computers and fabrication equipment.

Organ printing, house printing, scanning-tip nanoassembly, even the solar sinter – you can build anything with stepper motors and Cartesian coordinates!
http://gtr-skyline.com/ Martin

Those things are amazing, wow!
thrind

As a person with osteogenesis imperfecta, this is highly relevant to my interests of being a professional football player someday.
Rayya Ghul

I think she said that the ability to dissolve safely was the next stage of research but I might be wrong. Still, a really interesting application of 3d printing
http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC

The recent BBC programme Frontline Medicine had a segment on 3D printing bones. See the relevant bit here from about 4:40 onwards.