A group of medical researchers have converted an Xbox 360 console into a 3D printer. By using a component from the old Microsoft system, the people at the Technical University of Denmark have developed a better resolution large-volume nanoscale printer that will benefit many patients across the world. Basically, replacing a traditional Stereolithography optical system for printing with the optical pick-up unit from a 360. That makes this hack much simpler for the people who must use and maintain the technology. So many patients will have more ready access to medication and methods of deploying that medicine if this tech is widely distributed. Cutting down production costs is the easiest way to breaking down barriers to accessibility. The team talked to 3D Printing Industry about the practice.
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“We believe that this technology can impact different areas of health technology,” DTU Associate Professor En Te Hwu explained. “The original goal for developing our own 3D printer was to be able to print cubic centimeter volume with micro/nanoscale resolution for our own micro-container based drug delivery development. And we couldn’t find a 3D printer system on the market that could do this. So we had to make our own.”
Hwu added, “In addition to 3D printing our microscale conatiners with a diameter of a human hair for more efficient oral drug delivery developments, this system can also be used to print painless microscale needles to be used on skin patches to speed up transdermal drug delivery developments.”
DTU PhD Student Tien-Jen Chang is also a research team member. They also mentioned, “With our 3D printer that can print micro and nanoscale 3D objects, we are able to go from tens of micrometers in printing resolution down to hundreds of nanometers without expensive specialized components.”
What do you think this type of technology will lead to? Let us know down in the comments!
