Australian University 3D Printing Body Parts for Medical Schools

There is a growing need for dead bodies in medical science, but since the profession is focused on saving lives and helping people live longer, there are less cadavers stacking up for medical research than required… which when you think about it, is not really a bad thing. Fortunately for medical researchers and scientists, a team at Monash University in Australia has a solution to the problem, 3D print the body parts required for their research!

The university has just announced the availability of their first commercially available kit, which comes with 3D printed anatomical body parts for education and training purposes. The 3D Printed Anatomy Series doesn’t use human tissue, but does come complete with printed limbs, chest, abdomen, head and neck.

“Many medical schools report either a shortage of cadavers, or find their handling and storage too expensive as a result of strict regulations governing where cadavers can be dissected” said Professor Paul McMenamin in a statement.

The obvious advantage here is that parts are reusable, store for a long time compared to a dead body, are cheaper to obtain, can be produced on demand and dispatched around the world. Of course they’re not ideal for all kinds of research, but it’s certainly going to help and pretty much any medical school with a 3D printer could start producing their own models as required.

Thank you Venture Beat for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Venture Beat.