The Lattice (Official 3DHEALS Podcast)

Everyone wants to fund the next miracle drug. Jim West thinks differently. In this episode, the Associate Director of BioTools Innovator makes the case that life-science tools and diagnostics are the better risk-adjusted venture bet than many therapeutics: you trade the 100X biotech moonshot for a 5-to-10X return with better odds, little regulatory risk, and a roughly five-year horizon. He backs it with the accelerator's own number...

We talk with Erik Boelen, founder of Qase3D, about how medical 3D printing went from a regulatory free-for-all to a world where hospital print labs function as medical device manufacturers. We break down MDR, CE marking, ISO 13485, and how to stay compliant with a lean system engineers will actually use. 
• The early “no rules” era and why proof of quality becomes unavoidable 
• How MDR and CE marking wo...

The real frontier in medical 3D printing isn't the printer — it's the material. In this 3DHEALS panel, five researchers, founders, and industry leaders map the shift from printing structure to printing function, and from lab-stage novelty toward regulated, investment-grade material systems spanning soft bioresins, bioactive ceramics, and titanium lattices.

Fabian Trumper (Arrakis Bio) argues that the best biomaterials are the ...

A single university discovery can turn into a life-changing therapy, but only if someone can translate the science into a product, a company, and a development plan investors will actually fund. That is why we sat down with Mark from UCLA’s technology transfer and licensing team to demystify what happens after the lab result and before the biotech headline. We talk plainly about what a tech transfer office does, what it can l...

Gravity shapes every lab workflow we take for granted, and it may be the hidden constraint behind some of the hardest problems in regenerative medicine. We sit down with Dr. Michael Roberts, a microecologist who led bioregenerative life support research at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and now serves as Chief Scientific Officer of the International Space Station National Laboratory, to talk about what microgravity is actually g...

A brain organoid that can learn to play Pac-Man sounds like a stunt until you realize what it represents: measurable learning, rewiring, and human-relevant neural function that animal models often fail to predict. We talk with Dr. Lowry Curley, founder of Luna LifeSci and former CEO and co-founder of Axosim (now 28 Bio), about why neuroscience drug development breaks so often and how NAMs are finally giving teams better tools to ma...

Absorbable biomaterials have transformed modern medicine, enabling implants, sutures, and drug-delivery systems that safely degrade once their function is complete. Dr. Rao S. Bezwada has helped shape the field of bioresorbable polymers for more than three decades. As the inventor of Monocryl®, the absorbable suture that has generated more than $2 billion in worldwide sales, and the holder of more than 150 U.S. patents, his innovat...

If you have ever wondered why dentistry can feel both high-tech and oddly hand-built at the same time, this conversation connects the dots. We talk with Dr. Nabeel Cajee, an oral implantologist in Newport Beach and faculty at Torque Academy and Implant Ninja School, about what it really takes to bring digital dentistry into daily patient care without turning your practice into a science project. From the earliest days of open-sourc...

Ossiform is on track to bring the first 3D printed resorbable bone implant to the US market. The company’s preclinical data showed full bone regeneration in six months. Monica Wellejus, Chief Commercial Officer of Ossiform, joins The Lattice to explain how a company built to personalize bone implants for craniomaxillofacial surgeries is pivoting to mass-produced bone implants for foot deformity, and why hospital finance teams...

What does it take to invent a technology that didn't exist before?

In this episode, host Dr. Jenny Chen sits down with Professor Paul Dalton, the inventor of melt electrowriting (MEW) and one of the rare "triple threats" in science: an inventor, educator, and futurist. This is also a conversation about science, creativity, and why MEW isn't just a technology but a movement.

Paul takes us from a boredom-filled childhood on a rural far...

This is our second episode recorded at the Materialise conference.  Our guest for this episode is no other than the CEO of Materialise Brigitte de Vet-Veithen. It is a pleasure for me to be able to conduct this interview, because Materialise is such a legendary company that has spent 35 years building the software and services infrastructure behind patient-specific implants, surgical planning, and point-of-care manufacturing. ...

This is one of two episodes we have recorded during our trip to Leuven Belgium for the Materialise 2026 Conference, focusing on 3D planning and 3D printing in hospitals. We talked with Dr. Tristan Remcharan about how pediatric cardiology imaging can become something you can literally hold, using 3D segmentation and 3D printing to make congenital heart disease easier to plan, teach, and explain. We also dig into the 2D versus 3D gen...

You can learn a lot about the future of healthcare by watching how a single pill gets made. From a small office in London, we sit down with Prof Alvaro Goyanes, co-founder and CEO of FabRx, to unpack how 3D printed pharmaceuticals are turning personalized medicine from an idea into a working system. If you’ve ever wondered why patients still get forced into a handful of standard doses, this conversation shows what changes whe...

Neurotech is the category most investors whisper about and then walk away from: too technical, too regulated, too slow. We wanted to talk to someone who leans in anyway, so I sat down with Varun Turlapati, founder of Chanakya Capital, to hear how he’s building an early-stage fund dedicated to neurotech devices and why he thinks the “long horizon” objection often misses what’s actually happening on the ground...

We track the biggest healthcare 3D printing stories from March 2026, from bioprinted organs and sustainable bioinks to FDA-cleared implants and hospital point-of-care wins. We also look at how 3D printed cancer tools, training models, microrobots, and AI quality control are moving from research into real clinical and manufacturing workflows. 
• bioprinted uterus model for preterm labor drug testing and future personalizatio...

What happens when a hospital needs a simple part but the supply chain takes weeks or months to deliver it? Dr. Stephan Ryan, physician and co-founder of PolyUnity, set out to solve that problem by helping hospitals produce parts themselves through safe, compliant 3D printing. In this episode, Stephen Ryan shares how early clinical experiences and an academic 3D printing lab evolved into a platform designed to help hospitals manufac...

We map the biggest shifts in healthcare 3D printing this month, from emissions safety to custom eyewear, implant surfaces, microfluidics, and space-based biomanufacturing. We weigh promise against risk and share where standards and design can close the gap.

• emissions from desktop and industrial printers and why they matter 
• safeguards for vulnerable groups and safer materials and testing 
• face-scan eyew...

We share how a decade of soft robotics, open APIs, and relentless iteration turned a 3D-printed prototype into a durable, touch-sensing bionic hand used by amputees and robots. Stories of failure, funding, and firsts reveal how speed, sensation, and design choices translate to real lives and real factories.

• early 3D printing wins and durability limits
• shift to soft robotics, silicone overmolding, carbon fiber reinforc...

We track a month of fast-moving news in healthcare 3D printing, from organ-scale bioprinting programs and ARPA-H’s funding model to point-of-care tools already entering clinics. The throughline is clear: vascularization, immune compatibility, and scale are converging with real-world deployment.

• UT Southwestern’s organoid-plus-bioprinting strategy for durable liver tissue
• Carnegie Mellon’s consortium ...