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While some scientists are working on 3D printed biotissue and others on medical instruments that can be used in hospitals around the world, researchers at the National University of Singapore have made a great breakthrough in the field of 3D printed drugs. They came up with an inexpensive way to produce tablets with a specific dose of medication and a rate of release, prescribed individually to a particular patient.
In the course of their research, Singaporean scientists have found a way to personalize the release rate of a drug, which they have not yet learned to control. Today, the tablets are manually divided into parts and taken throughout the day to achieve even absorption of the drug into the bloodstream. Hormones, for example, need to be taken at regular intervals. But patients often forget to take the medicine and get confused about taking the drug, especially if the doctor has prescribed several medicines to drink at once. Moreover, there are also medications that need to be taken according to a certain scheme, for example, a medicine for arthritis must first be taken in large quantities, and then the dose should be gradually reduced. There are also such medicines, the omission of which can be simply dangerous to health.
The possibilities of modern technologies for the production of medicines are very limited. The first and most important problem: the life of the tablets is short, they quickly break and disintegrate. However, Singaporean researchers have been able to find a way to make drugs with a controlled release rate inexpensive and easy. The new method was developed by Associate Professor Seo Xio Ling and PhD student Sun Yayuan from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Technology in the Faculty of Engineering. In theory, using this method, you can achieve any rate of absorption of the drug.
The uniqueness of the new tablet production method is that they are not created layer by layer. On the contrary, they can consist of several different components, enclosed in a single polymeric shell, the shape of which determines the release rate. For example, from a shell with five cloves, the drug is released in five stages. In theory, manufacturers will be able to achieve any release rate simply by changing the shape of the shell. It can even contain several different drugs. The doctor just needs to draw the desired shape in a special program for modeling 3D printed templates. It is easy to operate and does not require any special modeling knowledge.
It's also worth mentioning that the researchers used a $ 2,000 3D printer, which significantly reduces the cost of the manufacturing process. This is a great, and the main real alternative to the usual method of producing tablets or photolithography. A 3D printer is needed to make a silicone mold that is filled with a drug-containing liquid. When it hardens, it produces a pill with one (or more) indentations. The remaining space can be refilled with the medication fluid. And so continue until the desired result. The required release rate is achieved by the final shape and number of notches of the tablet.
Now a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore is looking for new material combinations to improve the efficiency of 3D printed drugs, and is also trying to attract industrial partners to cooperate. The study was published in the journal Advanced Materials at the end of 2015, with a patent pending pending. Professor Seo sincerely hopes that such 3D printers will soon appear in all healthcare facilities in Singapore.
