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Apr 14, 2016 | By Alec

Though 3D printing can theoretically revolutionize just about any industry you can think of, surely the most important of all is the medical sector – where it can actively make the difference between life and death. To be sure, 3D bioprinting solutions for transplantable organs are still some years away, but 3D printed replicas of a patient’s anatomy are already occasionally used in academic hospitals to help with particularly complex surgeries. But those models have far more potential than they are currently being used for, a team of Danish researchers from Aarhus University argue. As part of a new study, they are showing how even a simple desktop 3D printer can increase a scientist’s understanding of anatomy of not just humans and patients, but also of animals of all shapes and sizes, and even of incomplete fossils.

Of course, 3D printed surgical models are already far more than a gimmick. When surgeons are trying to remove skull fragments from a patient’s brain, or are faced with a tumor entangled with crucial organs, for instance, these are already helping during surgical preparation and minimize the chance for unpleasant surprises once a patient is actually being cut open. Based on CT and X-ray scans, they give researchers a far better understanding of a patient’s anatomy and condition. So why not use that same technology to study newly discovered species or mysterious fossils?

Right now, when a biologist or archeologist is faced with a new discovery, they usually photograph it and give a detailed description. A good source of information, but it largely depends on the researcher’s own interpretations made in the field. As the team of researchers from Aarhus University argued in a recently published paper, it is actually remarkably easy to make a detailed 3D scan of, for instance, a frog instead. Even with a cheap 3D printer, they say, you can gain a whole new perspective on the frog’s anatomy.

To illustrate that, they 3D scanned 20 different animals (including frogs, cod, giraffes and moles), and turned them into 3D printed replicas. “If a researcher needs to describe a complex anatomical structure of an animal that no one has looked at before, it can be difficult when you have nothing but a flat piece of paper to work with,” assistant professor Henrik Lauridsen, the study’s lead author, told Danish reporters. “Being able to translate that into a 3D structure and get it into your hands makes it far easier to study.”

Now of course studying a frog’s spine is already easy when you have a complete skeletal model, but the same cannot be said for studying the complex heart chambers of that same frog – something which could reveal valuable biological data regarding a frog’s evolution. “Think back to the anatomically correct plastic human torso in a school’s biological classroom. The pieces, that can be separated, provide a much easier way to understand that anatomy than a 2D drawing. Anatomy does well in 3D,” argues Lauridsen. Working with 3D models is particularly easy, as even a tiny insect can be greatly scaled up. 3D files can also be easily shared with colleagues, while incomplete models can be digitally filled to compensate for missing data.

To illustrate this potential, Lauridsen and his team have already 3D printed replicas of various animal hearts, with a giraffe heart (left) and an African elephant heart (right) visible above. Below you can see 3D printed heart models they also produced for the study, using data from an underage and an adult patient with complex heart defects. One of the hearts even has a lid, enabling researchers to study both the inside and outside. In the YouTube clip below, a 3D printed replica of the femur fossil of a Hadrosaurus can be seen.

Unfortunately, existing limitations in the field of comparative anatomy and physiology means that dissection and microscopy are hardly used. This makes the step towards 3D printed models a big one, but Lauridsen argues that their study shows it definitely adds a lot of value. And with 3D printers becoming a lot more accessible and affordable, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t become common features in laboratories. “We know that the interest is there and scientists would really like to use it to make studies more comprehensive. They just need to stop being afraid of technical tools,” he argues.

3D printing specialist David Bue Pedersen from Aarhus Tech further argued that the chaotic 3D printing market doesn’t help. But the barriers are relatively easy to overcome. “If you want to make a correct model of an organ with detailed veins and tissue structures, you only need a detailed CT scan,” he says. “Most researchers should be able to familiarize themselves with how 3D scanning works. Completely inexperienced students in the first semester here at DTU can learn how to use a standard 3D printer in just about a day or so.” Hopefully, this study will show just how accessible 3D printing has become, and what it can offer even to biologists and archeologists.

 

 

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