Start des EU Projektes "FAST"
Functionally Graded Additive Manufacturing Scaffolds by Hybrid ManufacturingHighly customized and affordable implants by a new hybrid 3D printing technology
Eight European companies and research institutes have teamed up in the EU-funded research and innovation project “FAST”, which stands for “Functionally graded Additive Manufacturing (AM) scaffolds by hybrid manufacturing”, to make a new 3D printing technology available for the manufacture of implants customized to the patient at affordable cost. Specific patient implants can promote effective preoperative planning, shortening the time of surgery and improving the lifetime of the implant. |
![]() |
BioScaffolder 3.1 of the FAST project partner GeSIM GmbH to produce scaffolds for tissue regeneration © GeSIM Gesellschaft für Silizium-Mikrosysteme mbH
|
The medical sector is now the fourth industrial sector using Additive Manufacturing. Compared to traditional methods, this technology has the capabilities to produce time and cost-efficiently customised surgical and prosthetic devices, surgical implants and scaffolds for tissue regeneration individually for each single patient.
Scaffolds production for tissue regeneration is one of the main fields where the “Design for Function” feature of AM makes the difference relative to the other production techniques, in particular if in the production process all the needed “functions” can be introduced: shape and porosity, mechanical stability and biochemical properties such as cell growth control or antibiotic function. The FAST project aims to develop a cost-efficient technology to integrate all these “functions” in a single AM process that is even capable to produce gradients in the bulk or surface properties of the individual scaffold.
Thus not only customized shapes of scaffolds can be produced, but also bulk and surface properties of the scaffold material can be tailored according to the specific needs of each individual patient.
|