If you haven’t heard, the New Milford High School’s MakerSpace in the library has an awesome 3D Printer.
Researchers have introduced a unique micro-robotic technique to assemble the components of complex materials. These components are the foundation of tissue engineering and 3-D printing, which has become vitally important to the future of medicine for many reasons.
Check out the article on ScienceDaily by clicking here!
The micro-robot, which is remotely controlled by magnetic fields, can move one hydrogel at a time to build structures. This is critical in tissue engineering, as human tissue architecture is complex, with different types of cells at various levels and locations. When building these structures, the location of the cells is significant in that it will impact how the structure will ultimately function. “Compared with earlier techniques, this technology enables true control over bottom-up tissue engineering,” explains Savas Tasoglu, PhD.
“Our work will revolutionize three-dimensional precise assembly of complex and heterogeneous tissue engineering building blocks and serve to improve complexity and understanding of tissue engineering systems,” said Metin Sitti, professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Robotics Institute and head of CMU’s NanoRobotics Lab.
“We are really just beginning to explore the many possibilities in using this micro-robotic technique to manipulate individual cells or cell-encapsulating building blocks.” says Demirci. “This is a very exciting and rapidly evolving field that holds a lot of promise in medicine.”
While our library’s 3D printer can’t exactly print out human tissue, nor does it use micro assembly robots, I still think it’s pretty cool, and it’s only going to get cooler! Remember, this is what some of the first computers looked like a couple decades ago, and now everyone has such sleek and high-powered ones.
You never know what science will make possible!
Avogadro Salad 