Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Print And Probe: 3D Printers Offer New Method

August 9, 2018 By NYUAD

3D printers can make just about anything these days, from a pair of running shoes to chocolate, wood, and aircraft parts. And it turns out — even complex scientific gadgets used in cancer research.

Innovative, cost-efficient tools are essential in life sciences research to understand how cancer cells migrate from one place to another during metastasis, to probe how neurons connect in networks during human development, and to watch how white blood cells respond to infections. At NYU Abu Dhabi, biomedical engineers are designing new technologies biologists need to make important discoveries in these areas.

One such device is called a microfluidic probe, or MFP, as it’s called in the lab. Typically made of glass or silicon, these very tiny scientific tools — roughly the size of a pen tip — were invented about a decade ago and are continuously being developed and refined. MFPs are used by scientists around the world to study, process, and manipulate live cell cultures in a controlled environment.

Although the technology is well established, it poses unique challenges and limitations. Specifically, MFPs cannot be easily produced on demand due to their complex fabrication procedures, and are expensive to make in large quantities because of their assembly procedures.

“Democratizing” science technology

Biomedical engineers at NYUAD used a 3D printer to create a functional, integrated, and inexpensive MFP to study cancer cells and other living organisms in a Petri dish. Their printed device is cube-shaped with a cylinder tip and works with the same efficiency as its more expensive and laborious cousin.

“3D printers provide a simple, rapid, and low-cost technique for fabricating MFPs,” said Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Mohammad Qasaimeh, whose team developed a framework to print microfluidic probes and quadrupoles in 3D.

“It’s cheaper to produce, easy to scale up or down, and fast to fabricate — all steps, from design to product, can be made in less than a day,” he explained, and as a result, “any science lab with a moderate resolution stereolithography printer will be able to fabricate 3D MFPs on demand and use them to process cells reliably.”

3D printed MFPs, “can deliver reagents in a localized manner, only a few tens of cells can be targeted within the culture dish, while leaving other millions of cultured cells untouched,” added Ayoola T. Brimmo, NYUAD Global PhD Fellow in Engineering and first author of the research, demonstrating its functionality in localized delivery and cell processing.

The study results, published in the journal Scientific Reports – Nature, builds on Qasaimeh’s previous work developing microfluidic probes and quadrupoles to study how human neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) behave when responding to infections.

In an earlier study, Qasaimeh and his research team used a silicon microfluidic probe to discover how neutrophils respond to moving sources of concentration gradients that mimic infections and pathogens. The research analyzed how quickly these cells respond to stimulation, showed how neutrophils start their migrations at a maximal speed that slows over time, and how neutrophils undergo rolling-like behaviours before they start to pursue an infection site.

Image shows a microfluidic probe printed in 3D. Cube-shaped and green-colored, this probe is about the size of a ring box, however, the design can be printed in many sizes.

Related Articles Read More >

Biological Toolkit of Cells Assembled Like Legos
New Technology Keeps Eye On Babies’ Movement In The Womb
Robots Won’t Replace Teachers But Can Boost Children’s Education
Artificial Placenta Created In Laboratory

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 20, 2022
DeviceTalks Boston Post-Game – Editors’ Top Moments, Insulet’s Eric Benjamin on future of Omnipod 5
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech