Tough, bioresorbable polymers for stereolithography 3D printing

Although 3D printing is generally still seen as a novelty, stereolithography 3D printing has already been around for 35 years. It’s arguably the most established, accurate and reliable of all 3D printing techniques. Whilst initially developed for rapid prototyping to speed up product design, the development of new materials has enabled its use for functional, ‘mass-customised’ end products in many industries. Its use in medicine is lagging behind though, limited by a lack of suitable biomaterials. In this talk I’ll give an overview of the stereolithography technique and some of its medical applications, and show some of our research (both very old and very new) into bioresorbable polymers for this 3D printing technique.