This groundbreaking technology could be used by battlefield soldiers to print temporary sensor to place on their bodies to detect biological or chemical agents, or solar cell to charge essential electronics, or for people with skin disorders.
Biological cells were also successfully printed on the skin wound on a mouse, a technique that may lead to new medical treatments for wound dressing and healing, as well as direct printing of grafts to be used for treatment of skin disorders.
This new 3D printing technique has a few key innovations such as it can adjust to small body movements that happen during printing, markers are temporarily placed on the skin before the skin is scanned, then the printer uses computer vision to adjust to these small movements in real time. Every person moves slightly no matter how hard they try to remain still, and each hand is different, this printer tracks the hand using the markers and adjusts in real time to the contours and movements of the hand so printing of the electronics retains circuit shape.
Another feature is that it uses specialized ink made from silver flakes that cure and conduct at room temperature, which is different than other 3D printing inks that need to cure at high temperatures which would burn the hand. Removal of the electronics are done by simply pulling it off using tweezers or washing it off with water.
This new 3D printer and technique opens opportunities for many other applications which include printing cells to help with patients who have skin diseases. Bioink was successfully used to print cells on a mouse skin wound which could lead to advances in medical treatments. It is a simple idea which has potential for unlimited and important applications in the future.
There are 2 videos which can be viewed at : https://youtu.be/DTXqUrmr3FQ and https://youtu.be/t5C3OyKY_2g
