ICRME Speaker Series – Matt Becker, PhD

As part of the ICRME Speaker Series, Matthew L. Becker, PhD, will talk about how new resorbable materials and inks are needed if additive manufacturing will really change medicine. Becker is a chemistry professor at Duke University.

The event will be at 12 pm on Wednesday, December 18 in room 317 of the Ruth Lilly Medical Library on the Indiana University School of Medicine campus.

Abstract: The evolution of resorbable materials is not keeping pace with the technology advances in additive manufacturing. Efficient, reproducible, and precise methodologies for fabricating patient-specific scaffolds using three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques are evolving rapidly. Fusion deposition modeling and photochemical printing have each been used widely for a number of applications. However, each has significant limitations, including translationally relevant materials that can be used with each printing system. Necessarily, new and promising materials must surface as alternatives to previously studied polyesters. We are developing two material platforms, amino acid-based poly(ester urea)s and functional poly(propylene fumarate), which can be printed using FDM and photocrosslinking methods, respectively. This presentation will describe the use of several translationally relevant chemistries and post-printing functionalization strategies that are impacting the practice of medicine and how physicians are planning for future therapies that were not possible previously.