Soft and hard implant fabrication using 3D-BioplottingTM

At the Freiburger Materialforschungszentrum we have developed a new process (3DBioplotting) that permits most kind of polymers and biopolymers to be used in 3D scaffold design, including hydrogels (e.g. collagen, agar), polymer melts (e.g. PLLA, PGA, PCl) and twocomponent systems (e.g. chitosan, fibrin). Cells can be incorporated within the construction process, making this an ideal Rapid Prototyping technique for Organ Printing. Tailor-made biodegradable soft or hard scaffolds can so be fabricated in a short time using individual computer-tomography data from the patient. In-vitro tests showed promising results and in-vivo experiments are now under observation.