3DMedLIVE 2019: highlights from day one

6 Oct 2020

Written by Pieter-Jan Belmans, Ruth Goodridge

Pieter-Jan Belmans (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) and Ruth Goodridge (University of Nottingham, UK) discuss their highlights and key takeaways from day one of 3DMedLIVE 2019: 3D printing in surgery.

Biographies

Pieter-Jan Belmans is a Clinical Engineering Manager at Materialise.

Ruth Goodridge graduated from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1999 with a BMedSc(Hons) degree in Biomaterials. After a year out to work at biomaterials companies and research institutes in the UK, Australia and the US, she returned to the UK to pursue a PhD at the University of Leeds (UK) looking at the laser sintering of bioceramics. Upon completion of her PhD in 2004, she was awarded a JSPS Fellowship to investigate new materials for laser sintering at NAIST, Japan. She joined the Additive Manufacturing Research Group at Loughborough University (UK) in 2006, where she continued her research into new materials for Additive Manufacturing/3D-Printing, predominantly focusing on laser sintering of polymers and the use of AM for biomaterials/bioengineering. In April 2012, she moved to the University of Nottingham as part of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing. She is currently on secondment to the NHS (Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, UK), funded by an EPSRC discipline hop award, exploring clinical need for additive manufacturing (including 3D printing) and looking at ways to bridge the gap between current technical capabilities and use in clinical practice.

“I think there are two key points that really stuck with me. One of them was that we need to distinguish between what we can do, what the possibilities are and what’s affordable, and certainly from an academic point of view, that’s something that we definitely need to keep in mind. The second thing was about the awareness gap. People are aware what the technology can do, but aren’t aware of how they can do it…”

Belmans and Goodridge were interviewed at 3DMedLIVE 2019: 3D printing in surgery. To access more exclusive interviews and content from 3DMedLIVE 2019, watch this space on 3DMedNet >>

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