Friday, September 16, 2011

BBC News - Artificial blood vessels created on a 3D printer

BBC News - Artificial blood vessels created on a 3D printer: To print something as small and complex as a blood vessel, the scientists combined the 3D printing technology with two-photon polymerisation - shining intense laser beams onto the material to stimulate the molecules in a very small focus point.

The material then becomes an elastic solid, allowing the researchers to create highly precise and elastic structures that would be able to interact with a human body's natural tissue.

So that the synthetic tubes do not get rejected by the living organism, their walls are coated with modified biomolecules.

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