Advanced Research in Virtual and Rapid Prototyping - Proceedings of VR@P4, Oct. 2009, Leiria, Portugal
DOI: 10.1201/9780203859476.ch73
In this paper we present bioengineering and biomedical research performed with Fab@Home and modifications to the system which improve its performance for these applications. At Cornell University, the Cardiovascular Developmental Bioengineering Laboratory uses the Fab@Home system for tissue engineering research to fabricate replicas of native cardiac valves using hydrogel mixes that include poly-(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEG-DA), poly-(ester amide) (PEA), alginate and a commercial photoinitiator. The printed porcine aortic valve demonstrates good shape fidelity and dimensional accuracy compared to medical scans of the valve. CTI has a team working to improve Fab@Home systems for biomedical applications by installing a linear guide with limit switches for deposition tools, attaching a device to align the tip for better deposition with two syringes and making improvements to the software for importing and manipulation of 3D models using high quality open source libraries.