The Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HSHSL) at University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) recognizes the significant impact of the Maker Movement and 3D printing technology on both health sciences research and beyond. The Maker Movement and 3D printing technology catalyze innovation and promote entrepreneurship by emphasizing ‘making’ over ‘consuming’ and facilitating experiential learning and rapid prototyping. 

The Innovation Space* at the HSHSL can help the UMB students, researchers, and faculty achieve many things. 

• Faculty can create instructional tools such as 3D models of molecules or those of human anatomy in order to improve classroom instruction and expedite a student’s learning process. 
• Researchers can strengthen their grant proposals for funding by including the HSHSL Innovation Space facility, equipment, service, and staff-expertise.  They can also quickly prototype a physical model of a medical or healthcare-related invention to test out the feasibility of a further entrepreneurial pursuit, commercialization, and mass production. 
• Students will be able to explore novel technology that has a significant impact on health sciences, benefit from interdisciplinary learning and collaboration opportunities, and prototype physical models for their ideas and concepts for study, research, and experimentation.

Below are some examples of what is currently taking place in the Maker Movement and 3D printing technology in the realm of health sciences.

Medicine

• “In a world’s first, doctors successfully resect 5 vertebrae with a 19cm 3D printed spinal implant” - 3Ders.org
• "3-D printer helps doctors prep for complex surgeries" - Boston Globe
• A surgeon in Sinai Hospital of Baltimore performed a total knee replacement surgery using 3D printing technology to cast an implant and manufacture the jigs — plastic cutting guides — that direct incisions.  
• Personalized 3D printed casts to better heal broken limbs
• MakerHealth

Physical Therapy

• A Baltimore-based startup company, Verve, launched a Kickstarter campaign for their 3D printed device for posture and pain relief called ARC and raised over $7,000 in less than 24 hours.  The company includes Dr. Gene Shirokobrod, a UMB faculty member in the School of Medicine.
• Bringing together 3D printing and physical therapy 

Dentistry

• These 3D printed teeth fight bacteria
• My Dentist 3D Printed My Crown
• Dentists will soon be able to 3D print you a new tooth in minutes.

Nursing

• Do-It-Yourself Health: How the Maker Movement is Innovating Health Care
• MakerNurse
• Nursing homes in Germany serve 3D-printed food
• Emerging Technology and Nursing Care: 3-D Bioprinting

Social Work

• A man in Massachusetts created a prosthetic hand for his son who was born without fingers using a 3D printer at only a fraction of the cost for a commercial prosthetic hand.

Pharmacy

• First 3D-printed drug approved by FDA
• Pharmacists are exploring a way to use 3D printing to produce medicine to make it more affordable and customizable to the needs of individual patients.

Research and Education

• Replace a broken small part for research lab equipment that cannot be purchased.
  • Open Labware: 3-D Printing Your Own Lab Equipment
  • 3D-printing your lab equipment—it’s cheaper than you think
• Create a tactile model for classroom instruction such as a cross-section of a human organ, bones, teeth, and molecule models. NIH 3D Print Exchange has collections of useful 3d models that you can download in prosthetics, neuroscience, heart library, molecules and many more human organs and biochemical elements such as DNA and enzymes.
• The National Institutes of Health recently launched NIH 3D Print Exchange, so that researchers can share 3D print files, thereby acknowledging the important role of 3D modeling and printing technology in biomedical and scientific research. Scientists are already bio-printing human tissues and attempting to 3D print a human organ itself.  
• The White House held its very first White House Maker Faire, stating that that the rise of the Maker Movement represents a huge opportunity for the nation and that it would create the foundation for new products and processes that would help to revitalize American manufacturing in the same way that the Internet and cloud computing had lowered the barriers to entry for digital startups.

The HSHSL Makerspace will also plan and hold a variety of workshops and events to spread the knowledge of 3D modeling/printing technology more widely on the campus. This will promote active collaboration, experimentation, innovation, and entrepreneurial pursuits among students, researchers, and faculty across different disciplines and academic units.  The HSHSL is actively investigating a few potential funding sources.

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*‘Makerspace’ refers to a community-operated workspace where people with common interests in computers, machining, technology, science, and art meet, socialize, and collaborate on ‘making’ activities.  The goal of a makerspace is to foster and facilitate people’s creativity and innovation. To achieve this goal, makerspaces offer (i) tools and equipment that are not readily available at home such as 3D printers and laser cutters, (ii) organize events and workshops, and (iii) provide a collaborative space where people can learn by hands-on activities and experiment.  3D printing is the most prominently featured technology at makerspaces because of its ability to quickly create a physical model at an affordable cost. 

Modernization projects such as the Innovation Space initiative are made possible by the generosity of donors through the UMB Foundation. If you would like to support projects such as these please visit https://umaryland.givecorps.com/causes/714-hshl or contact us at (410) 706-7545.