This new breakthrough is believed to be very useful for orthopedic surgeons, dentists and people with osteoporosis or thinning of bone mass. Its main function is to develop an artificial bone tissue, and then shape it as closely as possible to the original bone.
"Doctors can get the desired bone shape through regular scan tool, then the data is connected to the printer," says Prof. Susmita Bose of Washington State University who found such tools as quoted by CBS News on Monday (5/12/2011).
Artificial bone that is printed with this printer has been tested on rats and rabbits and the results published in the journal Dental Materials. Human trials in a matter of time, and if successful then in the next few years these tools began to be marketed.
The workings of the bone printer is basically the same as 3-dimensional printer used to print metal materials. It's just, 'ink' is replaced with calcium phosphate as in the original bone and mixed with dough zinc and silicon.
Section ejects ink will spray the dough on a kind of nucleus, whose size is no wider than a human hair. Bursts were carried out layer by layer until it reaches a certain thickness the size of an eraser.
Candidates for the eraser-sized bone was then removed from the printer, and then stored in a highly controlled conditions in the laboratory in order to grow as native bone. In recent weeks, the artificial bone that is printed with a printer that was to be grafted.
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