Since being founded in March as a health care division of Desktop Metal, Desktop Health has been busy adding new technologies to its range of 3D-printed offerings. The recent acquisition of the PhonoGraft biofabrication platform—developed by Harvard researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and teaching hospital Mass Eye and Ear—has the potential to do far more than just heal ruptured eardrums.
“We believe that this platform may one day offer a groundbreaking solution to the millions of patients impacted by tympanic membrane perforation (TMP),” said Michael Jafar, president and CEO of Desktop Health. “PhonoGraft material technology, coupled with our leading biofabrication capabilities, has tremendous potential across a wide range of healthcare applications in soft tissue—from cardiovascular and neuronal grafts to plastic surgery.”
While still in the advanced stages of research and development, this new technology may be an innovative step toward the future of boosting the human body’s ability to heal and regenerate tissue. Studies indicate that this implantable, biodegradable 3D-printed graft offers a less invasive option with enhanced results for healing and hearing.
The inspiration for the PhonoGraft was the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The tragic event, which killed three people and injured hundreds, left many in attendance with eardrum perforations. This sent the original researchers on a six-year journey to explore 3D printing as an option for eardrum reconstruction rather than existing methods—such as tympanoplasty, a surgical procedure that has been around since the 1950s. While endoscopes have allowed for less evasive patch tympanoplasty, for a patient to truly heal and regain hearing requires eardrum tissue—not tissue from elsewhere in the body.
In collaboration with ear surgeons Dr. Aaron Remenschneider and Dr. Elliott Kozin from Mass Eye and Ear, a multidisciplinary team of material scientists and otolaryngologists set their sights on making the idea a reality. They formed a startup, Beacon Bio, to make progress on their synthetic device.
The team’s PhonoGraft is a biomimetic graft made with a biodegradable synthetic material, which aids with eardrum generation, as well as conducts sound like the eardrum. This tiny programmable device works at low and high frequencies and breaks down after the eardrum is repaired. During preclinical studies, its abilities have been validated in animal models.
“This device, which is manufactured from a biodegradable elastomer in the form of customizable biomimetic circular and radial scaffolds, is intended to function like the native eardrum,” said Nicole Black, original researcher and current vice president of biomaterials and innovation at Desktop Health. “Preliminary bench studies show that the PhonoGraft device not only closed the eardrum perforation, but it also supported the body’s regeneration of the complex eardrum structure.”
Along with its ability to boost regeneration, PhonoGraft is set to provide additional benefits. Since it is less invasive, local anesthesia can be used—shortening procedure time to about 20 minutes instead of more than two hours, as well as outpatient care time to one hour instead of eight. And because it is a synthetic device, it would be less expensive to produce or transport.
Interested in other ways that 3D printing is changing healthcare? Check out How 3D Systems and CollPlant Are Improving Breast Reconstruction Treatments and Personalized Medicine for Pelvic Floor Disorders in Women.