Manufacturing in Hospital: BioMed 4.0

尽管英国医疗/生物医药制造业每年创造700亿英镑和24万个就业岗位；它最重要的成果是一个健康、有功能、繁荣的社会。供应链中断、可持续性要求和社会经济环境（如英国脱欧、2019冠状病毒病）等意外外部性对这一行业构成了威胁，更重要的是对英国民众的福祉构成了威胁。为了应对这些威胁，必须开发新的和加强现有的技术，使其能够在分散的环境中制造精确的高价值、个性化的患者产品。3D打印等增材制造技术已经显示出这些特点，因为它们可以快速、经济地在现场制作原型和制造定制产品。当然，3D打印已经彻底改变了制造实践，并为全球经济带来了巨大的经济效益；例如，在英国，3D打印每年的收入为24亿英镑。即便如此，该技术仍存在主要的技术问题，包括原料性能依赖（印刷需要根据使用的塑料进行校准），过多的塑料废物产生（主要的环境问题），印刷分辨率差（纳米尺寸的结构不能印刷）和操作模式灵活性低（不能产生长纤维，颗粒）。这些技术缺陷严重阻碍了3D打印在许多医疗保健/生物医学环境中的部署。受生物对环境条件的反应的启发，该项目将开发一种新的响应性添加剂技术（名为eHD-3D打印），能够自主响应原料和产品要求，同时解决现代3D打印技术中存在的每一个挑战。为了实现这些变革性特征，我们将整合生物启发模式（例如传感、思考和移动）。我们将采用新颖的分析工具，能够感应输入单元的材料/塑料的类型。这些信息与产品的特性相结合，将允许人工智能算法确定最佳操作条件和操作模式。除了传统的3D打印，eHD-3D单元将能够以纳米级分辨率生成颗粒（0D）和纤维（1D），从而能够制造复杂的多尺度结构。此外，为了展示eHD-3D单元的变革性特征，将制造一系列几何和结构多样的组织支架。

Although British healthcare/biomedical manufacturing generates £70 billion/year and 240,000 jobs; its most important yield is a healthy, functional, thriving society. Unexpected externalities such as supply chain disruptions, sustainability requirements and socioeconomic circumstances (e.g. Brexit, COVID-19) pose a threat to this sector and more importantly to the wellbeing of Britain's population. To cope with these threats, it is imperative to develop new and strengthen existing technologies capable of manufacturing precise high-value, patient-personalised products in decentralised settings. Additive manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, have shown these characteristics as they enable prototyping and manufacturing customized products on-site in a rapid, and economic manner. Certainly, 3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing practices and generated tremendous economic benefits to economies worldwide; for instance, in the UK, 3D printing has a revenue of £2.4bn annually. Even so, this technology has major technical issues including, feedstock-performance dependency (printing needs to be calibrated depending of the plastic used), excessive plastic waste production (a major environmental concern), poor printing resolution (nanometer-size structures cannot be printed) and low flexibility in its operation mode (cannot produce long fibres, particles). These technical drawbacks significantly hinder the deployment of 3D printing in many healthcare/biomedical settings. Inspired by the response of organisms to environmental conditions, this project will develop a novel responsive additive technology (named eHD-3D printing) capable of responding autonomously to feedstock and product requirements, while addressing each of the challenges present in modern 3D printing technologies. To achieve these transformative characteristics, we will integrate bio-inspired modalities (e.g. sensing, thinking and moving). We will employ novel analytical tools that enable sensing the type of material/plastic fed into the unit. This information coupled with the characteristics of the product will allow an AI-algorithm to determine the best operating conditions and operation mode. Beyond conventional 3D printing, the eHD-3D unit will be able to generate particles (0D) and fibres (1D) with a nano-metric resolution, enabling the manufacture of complex multi-scaled structures. Moreover, to demonstrate the transformative features of the eHD-3D unit, a range of geometrically and structurally diverse tissue scaffolds will be manufactured.