Natural Compound Enabling 3D-Printing of Medical Implants Found

Researchers have discovered that a naturally-occurring compound can be incorporated into three-dimensional (3-D) printing processes to create medical implants out of non-toxic polymers. The compound is riboflavin, which is better known as vitamin B2.

"This opens the door to a much wider range of biocompatible implant materials, which can be used to develop customized implant designs using 3-D printing technology," says Dr. Roger Narayan, senior author of a paper describing the work and a professor in the joint biomedical engineering department at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill.

The team, involving researchers from North Carolina State University, Laser Zentrum Hannover, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focused on a 3-D printing technique called two-photon polymerization, because this technique can be used to create small objects with detailed features - such as scaffolds for tissue engineering, microneedles or other implantable drug-delivery devices.

Two-photon polymerization is a 3-D printing technique for making small-scale solid structures from many types of photoreactive liquid precursors. The liquid precursors contain chemicals that react to light, turning the liquid into a solid polymer. By exposing the liquid precursor to targeted amounts of light, the technique allows users to "print" 3-D objects.

Two-photon polymerization has its drawbacks, however. Most chemicals mixed into the precursors to make them photoreactive are also toxic, which could be problematic if the structures are used in a medical implant or are in direct contact with the body.

But now researchers have determined that riboflavin can be mixed with a precursor material to make it photoreactive. And riboflavin is both nontoxic and biocompatible - it's a vitamin found in everything from asparagus to cottage cheese. -- Source and © North Carolina State University

Reference:

Alexander K Nguyen et al., Two-photon polymerization of polyethylene glycol diacrylate scaffolds with riboflavin and triethanolamine used as a water-soluble photoinitiator, Regenerative Medicine, 2013, DOI: 10.2217/rme.13.60