Carnegie Mellon Engineers Release Open Source 3D Bioprinter Extruder Design

Over the past few decades, 3D printers have mostly been used for prototyping and manufacturing mechanical parts. But, the potential for medical applications has long been recognized in the industry. There is, for instance, the possibility that transplantable organs could be 3D-printed, which would make a significant difference in the treatment of many diseases. Some progress has been made, but research has been slow due to the simple fact that 3D bioprinters are still both expensive and experimental.

Thanks to a new design from engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, we may soon see dramatic improvements in 3D-printed organs. The team’s breakthrough is in the extruder itself — the part of a 3D printer that actually squeezes material onto the print bed. Traditional hobbyist 3D printers use an extruder that melts plastic, but the new design from Carnegie Mellon replaces that with a syringe pump capable of extruding organic tissue.

There are two major achievements here: first, common FFF (fused filament fabrication) 3D printers can be retrofitted with the new extruder, which makes the overall system affordable. Second, the extruder is capable of quickly printing large volumes of tissue while also doing so accurately. Maybe even more importantly, the researchers have made their design open source, so anyone can start using the technology. Their hope is that this will make bioprinting research more accessible, and will ultimately push the science forward.