Desktop Metal
Nicole Black, Ph.D., VP of Biomaterials and Innovation at Desktop Health, examines two tubular medical devices printed on the new 3D-Bioplotter PrintRoll rotating build platform in medical-grade materials.
Desktop Health, the medical 3D printing arm of Desktop Metal, has announced the launch of PrintRoll, a rotating build platform that can produce intelligent tubular solutions for the body’s vascular, digestive, respiratory and reproductive channels on the 3D-Bioplotter bioprinting system.
The 3D-Bioplotter is an extrusion-based 3D printer that processes liquids, melts, pastes, gels, or other materials, including cells, through a needle tip on a Swiss-made, 3-axis gantry system with high accuracy and temperature, sterility and design controls according to Desktop Health.
3D-Bioplotter offers eight printheads with what the company says is the widest range of temperatures in bioprinting, from 2°C to 500°C, enabling complex, multi-material medical parts. The PrintRoll add-on feature to the Bioplotter has been in development since 2019 as part of a collaboration with Johanes Gutenberg University Mainz, a public research university.
Ric Fulop, Founder and CEO of Desktop Metal said: “We are proud to offer the first bioprinting tool specifically designed to develop medical solutions for the thousands of miles of channels found in the human body. Desktop Health exists to deliver 3D printing solutions that improve patient lives, and we are confident that PrintRoll, offered exclusively on the 3D-Bioplotter, will enable all-new regenerative innovations. We look forward to seeing what our customers will create next with this exciting new tool.”
PrintRoll attaches to the modular build plate of the 3D-Bioplotter and features a motor-driven rotating mandrel with spring-loaded, easily exchangeable drums of different sizes. As the PrintRoll rotates, the printhead moved back and forth depositing material on the surface in the desired design.
The product comes with a 10mm diameter drum, with 20mm and 40mm sizes also available, and are designed to accommodate the development of solutions for a variety of human channels, which vary based on age and gender.
“Up until now, the creation of thin-walled cylindrical devices with complex structured walls has been challenging to accomplish with regenerative materials, such as hydrogels,” said Nicole Black, Ph.D., VP of Biomaterials and Innovation at Desktop Health. “With the PrintRoll, materials are patterned directly on top of a substrate that rolls as the printhead also moves, supporting the deposited layers and therefore expanding the palette of materials that can be 3D printed into these important structures, Following printing, devices can be removed from the PrintRoll, leaving high-resolution and reproducible parts that customers have come to expect from the 3D-Bioplotter.”
