Researchers Create Functional 3D-Printing Ink Made of Living Bacteria
21 Dec 2017 12:59

Researchers from ETH Zurich presented Flink – Functional Living Ink, that contains living bacteria along with other components, allowing the 3D printing of living structures. Their goal is to print biochemical factories, usable for different types of “manufacturing”, like filtering water, creating substrata for grafting tissues in surgery and so on. Depending on the application a different mix of bacteria and components are used.

 They can create sheets of cellulose fibres starting from an hydrogel that can be printed in the exact shape to fit an elbow. Surgery of the elbow is challenging because of the stress on tissues resulting form the movement of the arm and forearm. By placing these sheets of reinforced cellulose the surgeon can create very resistant structures to sustain an implant.

Prepared on the basis of information from Inside 3D Printing