The Many Medical Uses Of Fabricators
Fabricators, or rapid prototyping machines, allow you to "print" three-dimensional shapes in plastics, polymers and other materials. They're big and bulky - see the picture in this article - but affordable for larger research centers. Researchers are starting to make ingenious use of this technology to advance medical capabilities, building personalized prosthetics, biodegradable scaffolds that support the growth of complex tissue structures, and more. One scientists is quoted as saying "ultimately, tissue engineering may provide off-the-shelf tissues and organs for transplantation to replace or restore tissue function." Fabricators will be essential to achieving that vision, enabling people to live longer, healthier lives.
Link: http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol35/vol35n35/articles/PrototypeMachine.html