UC Davis Researchers Win Manufacturing Award with Vision to 3D Print Inside the Human Body

University of California, Davis, researchers won the David Dornfeld Manufacturing Vision Award at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers 2024 National Science Foundation Manufacturing Blue Sky Competition with a proposal for a pathway to 3D printing inside the human body.

The Blue Sky Competition seeks interdisciplinary proposals for visionary ideas that could be described as radical, outrageous, transformational or breakthrough; they should “pose grand challenges to be addressed by pursuing a manufacturing research vision … and show potential for transformative impact.”

In their proposal titled “Printing beyond barriers: A pathway to non-invasive deep inside body printing,” Mohsen Habibi, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, and his UC Davis collaborators, Aijun Wang, a professor of biomedical engineering and surgery, and James Marcin, a professor of pediatrics and vice chair for pediatric clinical research, suggest using Direct Sound Printing, or DSP, to 3D print things like implants or scaffolds inside the human body and reduce the need for invasive surgeries.

Habibi discovered DSP in 2018. The novel 3D printing method uses sound waves, instead of light or heat, to create solid material out of a polymer solution from behind a physical barrier.

For 3D printing inside the body, the researchers propose using biologically compatible materials, which would be injected into the body and the ultrasound source would be spatially adjusted to print the desired shape.

The project earned top prize over five other finalists, selected out of more than 50 submissions.