Envisioning the future of regenerative medicine elicits images of an operating room that also is a manufacturing facility. Patients undergoing surgery could have immediate access to products biomanufactured within the operating room or even within their own bodies. Products such as tissue engineered for targeted healing or 3D-printed scaffolds that repair diseased organs, bones or cartilage could be customized to address individual needs.
This health care vision at the crossroads of biomanufacturing, engineering and regenerative medicine earned Mayo Clinic top honors at the National Science Foundation Manufacturing Blue Sky Competition. The David Dornfeld Manufacturing Vision Award is based on ideas described as radical, transformational, breakthrough, convergent and unconventional that could influence the future of manufacturing research. Michael McPhail, Ph.D., a biomedical engineer and research associate at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, proposed the award-winning concept of surgical manufacturing at a Society of Manufacturing Engineers conference.
"The goal of this competition is to introduce ideas that address grand challenges in manufacturing engineering and have a transformative effect," says Dr. McPhail. "Our team envisions products produced both in the operating room and in the patient to regenerate multiple tissue types to support reconstructive surgeries."
Read the rest of the article on the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine blog.
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