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Dec 11, 2017 | By Tess

A skilled team of scientists from the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego have 3D printed a customized brace for an injured sea turtle. The team claims it is the first 3D printed device of its kind and could be adapted to help other sea turtles with similar injuries.

In 2013, workers at a power plant in New Jersey came across something quite unusual on their daily rounds: a sea turtle which had found its way into the plant’s cooling canal. The animal, a young, 75 lbs female loggerhead turtle, was suffering from a “large gap in the bottom right part of her shell,” which seems to have cause a curve in her spine and paralysis in her back flippers, according to Beth Chee, the Birch Aquarium’s marketing director.

Though the cause of the injury is still unknown, veterinarians came to the conclusion that the turtle’s injuries were severe enough that if let back into the wild, she would not survive. Upon that realization, a team from the Birch Aquarium, part of the University of California, San Diego, offered to take the sea turtle in.

With the help of a fundraising campaign, the aquarium was even able to amass $50,000 to put towards housing the injured sea turtle and, as became necessary, to rehabilitate and treat her.

"That growth has really exacerbated her condition,” said Jenn Nero Moffatt, the senior director of animal care, science, and conservation at Birch. “Without our intervention, the sea turtle could have gastrointestinal and urogenital systems complications.”

To find a suitable treatment for the injured sea turtle, the Birch Aquarium team partnered with researchers from the Digital Media Lab at UC San Diego’s Geisel Library and came up with a design for a 3D printed brace that could “prevent the shell from curving further downward” and “promote normal growth” for the turtle’s shell.

“It's our goal to prevent further complications and keep her as healthy and happy as possible,” added Moffatt.

The brace itself was 3D printed from a rigid plastic material and was attached to the turtle’s shell using a marine-grade turtle-safe epoxy. As the loggerhead continues to grow, however, (they can reach up to 250 lbs when fully grown) a new 3D printed brace will need to be made.

(Images: Birch Aquarium)

Excitingly, Birch Aquarium visitors can actually see the sea turtle with her 3D printed shell brace in person, as she lives in the center’s Magdalena Bay habitat in the Hall of Fishes. Twice a week, people can even see the sea turtle being fed and undergoing rehabilitation.

This is not the first time that 3D printing has been used to help sea turtles, as there is an ongoing effort to 3D print trackable sea turtle eggs which can help to deter and catch poachers, and the technology has also been used to create a 3D printed prosthetic flipper for a sea turtle that was attacked by a shark.

 

 

Posted in 3D Printing Application

 

 

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