Graduate Student Auburn University Auburn, Alabama
Additive manufacturing (AM) approaches have gained importance in precisely fabricating desired constructs and prototypes. Polymer-centric technologies cover the broader horizon of leaps made by additive manufacturing for personalized drug delivery, orthopedics, and regenerative medicine development. Installation of implants and scaffolds is somewhat invasive and usually faces the challenge of an immune cascade, bacterial infections, and poor overall surgical healing. The industrially manufactured prototypes are practically designed with a “one size fits all” concept and are cumbersome for physicians if intended for personalized applications. We investigated different avenues of patient-centric implants and scaffolds fabrication ranging from the polymer-based coating (spray technique), metal 3D-printing, thermoplastic extrusion-based fabrication of polymeric scaffolds and implants, and syringe-extrusion-based layer coating of implants to achieve desired surface loading of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory actives. These newer techniques potentiate the efficacy of drug delivery, pushing us closer to the paradigm shift towards personalizing custom-based implants and scaffolds.
Learning Objectives:
This presentation elucidates the practicability of emerging AM techniques for the on-site manufacturing of patient-centric implants and scaffolds.
After attending the session, participants would walk through the burning need for personalization for implant fabrication and how these newer techniques are aiding us to attain that possibility.
Upon completion of the session, attendees would deduce mainly the challenges pertinent to AM technologies and how to be judicial with the selection based on the need of formulation scientists.
