What "Matter" Are You 3D Printing? It Ain't Just Plastic Anymore! In Fact, It May Be Alive...As In 3DP'd Life-Forms For YOUR Healthcare!

Two primary branches of 3DP—the 30-year-old rapid-prototyping and reverse-engineering world and the more and more DigiFab-empowered Maker Movement—are now twining around one another in wholly new uses on their way to novel materials, marvels and markets. Symbolically, the result looks a lot like the Caduceus, the “staff” of Ancient Greek Healthcare…printed 3D in life-forms. And, that IS what we are coming to: 3DP’d life-forms for Healthcare!

A Caduceus Key Fob, 3D Printed DIY in plastic from the “library” of Thingiverse: Thank You, MakerBot and Vin Min.

[Okay—for you Ancient Greek purist—our American Caduceus is really the design properly connected with the Greek god Hermes, the Messenger, who was all about trade, commerce and negotiation. The symbol of medicine in most other places in the world is the Rod of Asclepius. Our Caduceus—two snakes contending with each other around a flying rod—stems from mistakes perpetuated here at the turn of the last Century. Still, it’s fun to conflate our uniquely U.S. “sign” for medicine with the competition and cooperation of 3DP’s past and present and 3DP-driven healthcare about to fly high, organically. Well, I couldn’t help myself…]

In October, I’ve reported on Synthetic Biology, DIYbio and Community BioLabs in some detail. Why? Because—like everything else in our made or manufactured world—3DP is disrupting biology, too. Or—better said—accelerating the experimentation around DigiFabbed Life Sciences, and extending SynBio into our personal and public worlds.

My evolving focus on wetware—”computer-related idea[s] of hardware or software, but applied to biological life forms”—is a natural hybrid growing up from my abiding interest in healthcare crossed with my ongoing study of 3DP. And, like much hybrid vigor, I find this new focus very empowering…

Howard Hughes Medical Institute provides free resources for Science Education. Here is HHMI’s BioInteractive 3DP’d model of a Rhinovirus with a video loop of its rotation for better understanding. Rhinovirus is an RNA genome virus and is the main cause of the common cold in humans. Print your own copy from proffered 3D STL files. Feeling sniffily yet…?

Buttressing this concept—of 3DP as a protean engine pulling many “trains”—is the recent success of the Maker Movement. There, 3D printing is making vast inroads into the local consciousness and construction of engineered “makery” in community Maker Spaces, Places and Hacking Halls. (Maker Media believes over 30 percent of their Maker Faires {135+ events worldwide in 2014} are—in one way or another—now driven by 3DP.)

Now, “bioneered” makery is empowered by that same positive assault of Digital Fabrication. (DigiFab—and its forms—is the most accurate and all-inclusive term for the complex of actions and activities around 3DP and Additive Manufacturing).

Want more to contemplate in this regard? See my articles: “DIY/DIT Synthetic-Biology 3DP? Maker Citizen BioScientists Build Community Labs for Bio-Hacking” of October 6 and “DIY/DIT Synthetic-Biology 3DP? Maker Citizen BioScientists Build Community Labs for Bio-Hacking (Part 2-Ebola-Epidemic UPDATE)” of October 13.

Further demonstrating Techreative Brooklyn’s claim to invention and innovation at the wetware cross-over of art and science, bits and atoms, is the world’s first-ever (founded in late 2010—that’s how new all this is!) Community Biotechnology Lab, Genspace on iconic Flatbush Avenue.

This public-good innovation in Bio-Hacking was created by co-founders (and both Ph.D.s) President Ellen Jorgensen and Director, Scientific Programs, Oliver Medvedik.

I was delighted to write about Ellen in my October 13 post (link above). And, I’m working to gently dragoon Oliver into joining our new HCx3DP New York Meetup Panel entitled: “DIY/DIT (Do-It-Together) Healthcare: Present & Prospective Realities & Trends At The HCx3DP-Community Grassroots”—on the evening of Wednesday, 12 November at the DUMBO Startup Lab, DUMBO, Brooklyn.

The OpenTrons open-source, liquid-handling robot built by Will Canine (a Genspace member). The robot—which won an Editor’s Choice award from “Make:” Magazine at the World Maker Faire in Queens at the end of September—will be the focus of a Kickstarter campaign in November.

In striving to appreciate Dr. Medvedik’s many vectors—and especially what Dr. Jorgensen described as his “3D printing at Genspace”—I chased his wide swath around Google. As I enjoyed perusing Oliver’s many “doings” across disciplines, that beautiful word “consilience”—my definition: cross-boundary creativity—came to mind. He seems to embody that NeoBrooklynite I keep calling techcreative—as recently as three paragraphs above! Kudos, Doctor! Even if I can’t convince Oliver to join our Panel on 12 November, I look forward to meeting him…in any context.

Genspace is now spawning actual hardware and software in support of wetware.

One of the first Community-denizen efforts of this kind was to automate the labor-intensive Bio-Hacking work necessary to iterate fragile life in fluids and test tubes. Genspace member Will Canine created his award-winning OpenTrons Robot to solve this automated liquid-handling problem.

In this OpenTrons Robot example, we could think in (consilient) terms of 3D printing in the “material” of fluids and/or organisms. A far cry from extruding melted plastic or laser sintering metal powers. But, an appropriate form of DigiFab and Additive Manufacturing, all the same.

Then there’s Cambrian Genomics. This is the San Francisco startup that Autodesk’s Carl Bass, President & CEO, has lauded—more than once—as breakthrough. WIRED Mag quoted Carl to the effect that “Cambrian Genomics is a laser printing DNA company that can make more DNA in a single run than is usually produced in the entire world in a year.”

And, the company’s breakthrough was applying 3DP to DNA gene sequences: thus 3D printing DNA. Yes—in HC terms—this is DEFINITELY “patient-specific” Healthcare bioneering at the genetic level from a 3D printer.

Sarah Hoit, Materials Scientist, Material ConneXion & ThinkLAB; Co-Author, “Materials (R)evolution: Additive Manufacturing”

For a broader look at 3D printing materials of every kind—and their implications for Healthcare—I recommend you turn to Material ConneXion Inc. (MCX) and its first report on Additive Manufacturing materials. I reported on MCX via an interview with its Materials Scientist Sarah Hoit that was published by 3DPI (3D Printing Industry Ltd.) on 24 October. (I was also delighted to see that my interview of Sarah made the 3DPI Top 10 “Most Read” of last week! Ahhh…nothing like {commercially positive} worldwide exposure!)

So, let me wrap this post up by circling back to my title: “What ‘Matter’ Are You 3D Printing? It Ain’t Just Plastic Anymore! In Fact, It May Be Alive…As In 3DP’d Life-Forms For YOUR Healthcare!“

I’m so enamored of the application of 3DP to Life Sciences that last week—27 October—I posted a kind of project manifesto on this site—a pivot adjustment for our media startup 3DP Media. I’ve entitled this innovative effort HCx3DP New York. (“HCx3DP” stands for “Healthcare Multiplied By 3D Printing!”)

With this pivot, I’m addressing the next evolutions and revolutions in BioTech, MedSci, SynBiology, DIYbio—and how they all “matter” (poor pun) in the advancement of Healthcare via 3DP imaginatively applied (and much of that “imagination” is bubbling up from DIY/DIT sources).

To help build our HCx3DP Community, we’ve created a Meetup Group entitled: “HCx3DP NY: Healthcare Multiplied By 3D Printing = Synergies!” Regardless of whether you ever attend one of our Meetup events, I’d be delighted to have you become a member of our Meetup Community. It’s free.

As noted above, our first HCx3DP Meetup Event is Wednesday, 12 November. You can learn more (and RSVP to join in) at “DIY/DIT (Do-It-Together) Healthcare.