Researchers in Nottingham have been awarded a £6 million grant from the EPSRC to develop a toolkit for 3D printing – Additive Manufacturing – in UK healthcare.
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Example of 3d printing in healthcare process
The toolkit will act as an instruction manual to improve the pathway from research all the way through to development and clinical adoption – giving healthcare professionals access to the latest cutting-edge science faster.
Medtech industries have up until now struggled to adopt this promising technology. The problem is that although there is a need for personalised, tailored, and effective medtech devices, the materials have not been available, product development is arduous and the route to market is long.
The Centre for Additive Manufacturing, a multidisciplinary research group at The University of Nottingham, is addressing this problem by helping to unlock a bottleneck that prevents the bringing of new innovative engineering to the NHS.
The grant will help researchers create a toolkit platform by which industry can deliver, on demand, the materials and processes needed to 3D print medical technology and devices. Additive Manufacturing, which is the technology behind creating customisable, next generation, 3D objects, will help create highly functional, smart products for (bio)pharma, cell therapy/regenerative medicine, (bio)catalysis and more, that until now have been impossible to create using traditional manufacturing.
The goal is an instruction toolkit that will identify how medtech can develop personalised, tailored medtech devices. To see widespread uptake across hospitals, pharmacies and the wider NHS, manufacturing products embedded with advanced functionality need the capability to quickly, predictably, and reliably ‘dial up’ performance, to meet sector specific needs and specific advanced functionalities. Researchers hope the toolkit will bring new technology such as prosthetic limbs, ‘smart pills’ and intestinal patches that can rebuild tissues damaged through chronic disease.
Ricky Wildman, professor in chemical engineering, The University of Nottingham said: “Throughout the pandemic, we saw the COVID-19 vaccines develop at record speed and be implemented safely for the public good. We now have the chance to build on this success to continue to transform the way we get innovation that makes people’s lives better to market and to clinic.
“Multi-material, multi-functional additive manufacturing has the potential to revolutionise the way we realise medtech innovation. This funding will transform the market adoption of medical devices and therapies that are truly life saving for patients.”
Professor Mohammad Ilyas, consultant, NHS Nottingham added: “This is very exciting work which, through building cellular models, will improve our understanding of how the gut functions. More importantly, if successful, it will lead to a paradigm shift in clinical management and launch the use of autologous tissue engineered therapeutics for the treatment of bowel disease.”