Researchers awarded £6m grant for 3D printing toolkit

Researchers in Nottingham have been awarded a £6 million grant from the EPSRC to develop a toolkit for 3D printing - Additive Manufacturing - in UK healthcare.  

The toolkit will act as an instruction manual to improve the pathway from research all the way through to development and clinical adoption - giving healthcare professionals access to the latest cutting-edge science faster. 

Medtech industries have up until now struggled to adopt this promising technology. The problem is that although there is a need for personalised, tailored, and effective medtech devices, the materials have not been available, product development is arduous and the route to market is long. 

The Centre for Additive Manufacturing, a multidisciplinary research group at The University of Nottingham, is addressing this problem by helping to unlock a bottleneck that prevents the bringing of new innovative engineering to the NHS. 

The grant will help researchers create a toolkit platform by which industry can deliver, on demand, the materials and processes needed to 3D print medical technology and devices.