Okay, maybe no one was crazy about the printed food…

[ksmith]

…but printed bones are just wow.

An 83-year-old woman operated on last summer was the first person to receive an entire 3D-printed jaw transplant, her Belgian doctors announced Monday. The woman’s own lower jaw was riddled with infection, and given her age, and the fact that reconstructive surgery would have been a long and painful process, her doctors decided to have a new jaw specially manufactured for her. The replacement jaw is made out of titanium, assembled in thousands of layers by a 3D printer.

Rest of the story here, with a link to a paper about 3-D printing of bone substitute implants.

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.

Comments

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

Oh, WOW. That is so amazingly cool.

Did you see the article about "fracture putty" (http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/uga-discovery-uses-fracture-putty-to-repair-broken-bone-in-days/) scientists at UGA have come up with?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

That's cool, too.

Some of these medical discoveries are like magic. The nurse in HP, mending bones in a heartbeat.

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

I guess we're finally starting to reach the indistinguishable from magic stage of sufficiently advanced technology. And that ... is pretty darned neat.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

It's awesome living in the future!