The daily work of scientific research is rarely glamorous. During his PhD in genetics, Trevor Rife needed to extract DNA by grinding freeze-dried tissue in a 96-well plate. The process itself was straightforward: ceramic beads were placed into each well, the plate was capped and shaken, and the beads crushed the tissue to release the DNA. The challenge was loading the beads by hand. Although automated bead dispensers were available, they were too expensive for his laboratory.
Today, as a plant scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina, Rife has access to plenty of bead dispensers — but he did not purchase them. He makes them with a 3D printer. “It’s not groundbreaking hardware,” he says. However, commercially available bead dispensers cost around $10 each. By saving time and reducing costs, these simple devices have become some of his favorite 3D-printed laboratory tools.
Because it builds objects layer by layer, 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing — has become increasingly popular in scientific research. Its value became especially clear during the COVID-19 pandemic (see 3D printing in the literature). “Companies weren’t shipping materials to the lab, but researchers were able to make them,” Rife says. Using a 3D printer and homemade filament, laboratories can produce tube racks, sample holders and other essential equipment. Artificial intelligence tools are also helping researchers optimize designs and improve quality control.
Source: pubmed/nature analysis
Entry-level 3D printers now cost less than $2,500, with some of the least expensive models available for around $200. Bambu Lab, based in Shenzhen, China, offers several popular options, including the Bambu X1C used in Rife’s laboratory, which costs about $1,200. He also uses printers from other manufacturers, including the Prusa MINI, priced at approximately $550, and the Voron 0, which can be assembled from a kit for a few hundred dollars, depending on its configuration.
Nature spoke with five researchers about how 3D printing is transforming scientific research and laboratory design.
3D-printed tools for plant genetics
Rife has designed a range of simple, affordable tools for plant geneticists. His creations include seed-counting trays, sorting grids for separating seeds by size and tube adapters for punching holes in tissue-collection containers. His broader goal is to make plant research more accessible worldwide. Sharing a digital design file by email is often much easier and less expensive than shipping specialized laboratory equipment.
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Like many members of the maker community, Rife shares his designs online. He typically creates them with Autodesk Fusion product-development software before uploading the files to GitHub and 3D-printing platforms such as Thingiverse and Printables. The designs can also be customized for different experiments. For example, his bead dispenser can be adapted for 12-, 24- and 48-well plates. Researchers can change the size and shape of the holes in his seed counter to match the seeds they are studying. Rife designed the files parametrically, so adjusting one measurement automatically updates related dimensions. If the holes become larger, for example, the distance between them also increases to prevent overlap.
“There is an opportunity to add layers of customization and create bespoke tools for science,” Rife says. “The only real limit is your creativity and imagination.”
3D-printed skulls for bone-conduction research
At Chiba University in Japan, electrical engineer Irwanshah and his colleagues are using 3D printing to study bone conduction — the way sound travels through the human skull. Bone-conduction technology can amplify sound in hearing aids, but sound transmitted to the opposite ear can create unwanted interference and confuse the signal.
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To understand and reduce this unwanted “crosstalk,” Irwanshah is 3D printing anatomically accurate skulls, covering them with silicone skin and modifying them to test different aspects of sound transmission. Commercial devices for simulating the human head were not suitable for the project. Instead, the researchers started with a publicly available male MRI model, removed unnecessary structures and added openings for sensors. The 3D-printed skull is made from acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, a durable thermoplastic. Irwanshah also tested different silicone formulations to identify a skin-like material that would transmit vibrations realistically. The resulting models allow the team to investigate whether artificial heads can reproduce sound patterns observed in human studies.
According to Irwanshah, 3D-printed skulls are less expensive and easier to produce than commercial alternatives. They can also be modified for specific experiments. “Depending on your research question, you can change the design, sensor location, skull structure or outer material,” he says. For example, the team added an ear-canal model and positioned a microphone where the eardrum would normally be. They also placed a sensor in the inner-ear region corresponding to the cochlea to determine when their experiments successfully blocked acoustic crosstalk.
Low-cost 3D-printed flow reactors
Magda Barecka, a chemical engineer at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, uses 3D printing to create flow reactors for electrochemical research. These devices enable chemical reactions to run continuously as liquids or gases are pumped through narrow channels. Flow reactors can help convert carbon dioxide into chemicals and fuels, turning a greenhouse gas into useful products.
A basic commercial flow reactor can cost around $6,000, whereas the 3D-printed reactors built by Barecka cost less than $5 each. The systems do require assembly. Researchers combine 3D-printed plastic plates with serpentine channels, rubber gaskets and copper electrodes cut from readily available materials. This low-cost approach makes continuous-flow electrochemistry more accessible to laboratories with limited budgets.
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Source: www.nature.com