Alex

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have converted a six-axis robotic arm into a 3D bioprinter capable of printing cells from all directions. Using the modified bioprinter, the researchers were able to fabricate a complex-shaped blood vessel scaffold without causing cell damage or preventing cell growth and function, which are common challenges to current bioprinting methods. The 3D printed vascularized cardiac tissue remained alive and beating for six months, and could demonstrate a feasible method of bioprinting functional tissues and organs in the future.  The team also designed a repeated print-and-culture bioprinting strategy that could generate complex tissues or organs containing blood vessel networks capable of maintaining long-term survival and key functions in the future.  The CAS researchers’ novel bioprinting platform. Image via Bioactive Materials. 3D bioprinting tissues Over the past decade, there has been significant progress made in the development of viable patient-specific tissues by means of…    read more 

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the University of Calgary have developed a new kind of shapeshifting robotic cube using 3D printing technology. ElectroVoxels, as they’re called, are self-configuring robot blocks that can assemble themselves into all manner of shapes. These modular robots don’t use any clunky and expensive motors whatsoever, leveraging embedded electromagnets as an actuation mechanism instead. This allows them to repel, attract, and spin around each other with ease and scalability, like a hive mind of intelligent Lego bricks. The MIT team has already taken their ElectroVoxels for a spin on a parabolic flight, testing their functionality in microgravity conditions. They believe the work could have major implications for applications in outer space, such as dynamically-morphing spacecraft or storage containers that change their size based on the payload. Martin Nisser, lead author of the study, said, “When building a large, complex structure,…    read more