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Medical Materials and Medical Implant Design
Laboratory medicine is often given little consideration in
the context of health care because it lacks direct patient
contact. Nevertheless, it is very significant in terms of
health economics. In addition to tasks in classical diag-
nosis (e.g. blood and tissue examinations), laboratory
medicine also plays a major role in future-oriented pro-
cedures such as stem cell or autologous blood therapy.
Outside of high-tech blood analysis laboratories, many
activities in biomedical labs are still performed by hand at
high cost and risk of human errors (e.g. sample confusion,
miss-handling). The aim of the research area ‘Lab 4.0’ is
therefore the development of highly function integrated,
autonomous and process-monitored systems for the
cultivation of biological samples.
Additive manufactured miniaturized bioreactor with integrated wall heating
for biocompatibility tests
Lab 4.0 – Highly Function Integrated Smart Bioreactors
Additive manufacturing (3D-printing) is seen as a disrup-
tive technology in production. Especially for medical appli-
cations additive manufacturing will be a key technology
to produce small series products as well as individualized
implants. Starting as a student project in 2015, the team
AM Medical developed a printer for the processing of
established medical-grade plastics based on FFF (fused
filament fabrication). The team is now funded by EXIST
Transfer of Research and recently founded the KUMOVIS
GmbH. The KUMOVIS printer enables an economically
feasible processing of medical-grade high performance
plastics such as PEEK and flexible plastics (e.g. TPE).
Additionally the team is working on the fabrication of
filaments to guarantee a complete production process
chain fulfilling medical standards like biocompatibility and
the absence of particles.
KUMOVIS at Formnext, Europe’s most important fair for additive
manufacturing
KUMOVIS PEEK printer for
additive manufacturing of
medical devices.
Spin-off KUMOVIS – 3D Printer for Medical Applications