Episode #115| Professor Paul Dalton: Inventing Melt Electrowriting and the Future of Biofabricationrication

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 farm outside Perth, Australia, to the ophthalmic research lab where he helped build artificial corneas that restored sight to blind patients. He shares the moment a failing electrospinning experiment pushed him toward MEW instead — and the "breathless" discovery under the microscope that became MEW.

Along the way, Jenny and Paul explore:

• What electrospinning and melt electrowriting actually are, explained in plain language
• Why MEW pulls fibers instead of pushing them, and how it prints at one-tenth of a teardrop per hour
• The decades-long pursuit of clinical applications
• The open-source "MEWron" printer is bringing MEW to labs for a fraction of the cost of commercial machines
• The two kinds of makers — builders vs. users — and where the community is heading
• Paul's advice for clinicians and newcomers entering biofabrication

Plus, a remarkable offer for listeners at the end of this episode. 

🔗 Show notes

YouTube recording: Coming soon

Transcript

Welcome And Why MEW Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello there, welcome back to the Lattice Podcast. This is episode 115. Today, I finally got a chance to sit down with someone I've wanted on a show for a long time. Professor Paul Dalton, the inventor of Melt Electro Writing. Paul is a rare triple threat, a scientist, educator, and futurist. And honestly, going into this conversation, I was a little intimidated. I am not a scientist, and I knew just enough about MEW to be dangerous. But Paul is one of those people who can make complex ideas feel accessible without dumbing them down. By the end of our conversation, I walked away with a real appreciation for why MEW isn't just a technology, it's a movement. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. Please listen to the disclaimer at the end of this podcast. Hello, hello. Welcome. Professor Paul Dalton. Really, I highly anticipate this episode for a month or maybe even years now. This is a really valuable opportunity for us to get to know you and your work deeply. I think I think you are truly a triple threat. You're an inventor, futurist, educator. I would say I'm definitely a futurist myself. And maybe played a role of educator, but not an inventor. So I I I can't find any anyone else, uh maybe a few people that I know who have all three. So we know that you're an inventor of MELT Electro Writing, but not many people know about the origin story, you know, how you grew up in the scientific world back in Perth, Australia, which I didn't even know where that was. Um so if you can walk us there, it could be interesting to learn about your work and where you are today as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Sure. Thanks,

From Perth To Artificial Corneas

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Jenny. And it's great to be on here as well. Just have to say that I I became a futurist because I had to teach 3D printing for the past over a decade. And so that's just became naturally a part of the the course and actually analyzing future trends and and where things go. But originally, I mean I grew up in a rural part of uh Western Australia, so outside of Perth. And I'm not sure if you fully appreciate the 1980s, but being a teenager in that time was a lot of boredom. So um, you know, being on a farm, I, you know, it it w there was not a lot happening. And so I um got into books a lot. I started started wondering about like how this incredible world works and functions. And, you know, I just became a science junkie, I suppose, probably uh in the by age 16, 17, I kind of wanted to do everything from maths, chem, physics, biology, and that. And so I um went when I went to university, I tried to do something that encompasses everything. I didn't want to drop any of those. And I ended up doing materials engineering, and um that seemed to combine all of those different aspects. But it was really the I I I had such a lucky break in applying for what was probably one of the few biomedical jobs in Perth um at that time, where I worked in an ophthalmic research institute and we worked on artificial cornea. When I joined, there was only about three people in the lab, but we did get money to translate this into the into a clinical product. And so by the time I finished and and I did my PhD after that, in during that time as well, it was about seven years in total. Um, we had about 15 people in the team, and we'd been implanting corneas in about 10 people. And it was my job to be in the clean room making these artificial corneas. So it was just like this incredible experience to kind of join when there's hardly anyone in the team, see it grow, and then see that incredible lift that everyone has to do to make something a clinical product that's then implanted into people. And so that really formulated a lot of my research philosophies. Like, for me, I want to try and develop new products and new materials that can translate through to the clinic relatively simply, not uh after a lot of money and a lot of time, which usually seems to be the the case. And so my my education in my PhD was was on the artificial cornea and also the vitreous of the of the eye. And making these corneas for implantation required a lot of documentation, a lot of dry and boring stuff, but it really did uh kind of make me understand a little bit of what was needed to do that translation from an from a research lab idea into something that's put into people. And then also meeting the people, and you can see how this product changed their lives. These are people that were blind, suddenly they could see, and you know, I remember one person was able to see, found a partner, disappeared into the outback of Australia, and the ophthalmologist was saying, No, don't don't go. I I need to follow up on that. And that person would say, Don't worry, I'll be right. Off I go. So, you know, there's that human nature as well that comes into what we're doing in biomedical engineering that unfortunately a lot of biomedical research searchers don't have that opportunity to actually um see like and and it everyone has an important role. It doesn't matter if you're like ten years before a product is actually put into a person, the stuff that you're doing in the lab is really important. So just early on, I just saw the impact that biomedical materials have on people. And I I just treasure that opportunity so much and feel very privileged to be part of it. But I also want to say all those those researchers out there that aren't working near the clinic, well, like what you're doing is so important, right, for this this translation process. And so and I yeah, I even though I haven't done a lot of clinical translation since, I've been doing the basic research knowing that what we're doing is important.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So uh Yeah, I mean majority of the research, 90%. I I think I saw a figure somewhere. 90% of the scientific research never get into commercial space. I mean, that's just somewhat expected, but it doesn't mean that intellectual pursuit of knowledge is not worthwhile. You just don't know when is going to realize the benefit. And also it's funny that I heard you said you had a boring childhood and boring subjects. And I I would say like that's that's a more reflection of you than actually what the subjects are. I mean, maybe people don't feel so boring because they it's at their intellectual capacity. They're like, you know, maybe you need a boring childhood to be creative down the line to really explore this vast space of possibilities.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Yeah, well, I was referring a bit more to like the 1980s. Like there's there's no internet, there's there's no computers, right? Yeah. If you if you want to call someone, it's like a it's it's a landline, and you're you know, you're dialing with a rotary motor. So you that kind of uh you know, there isn't that kind of instant information there. And you know, boredom is the sort of the furnace where creativity can be um, yeah, you know, Newton nourish.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Newton got the the first principle of physics while in a pandemic. He was falling asleep, probably because of boredom. I'm just making up story here, I think. But I think that's that's the gist, is like he was really bored and he was thinking about something and something hit him, and it the creativity inspiration happened. So anyway, I just thought it was funny that you you talk about boring.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

It's super important. And I you know, I s I still um try and get bored as well deliberately. Um actually by going on like long hikes and yeah, is it called the leisure time?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

That's called the leisure time.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, the leisure time just let yeah and then you know as scientists inevitably you start thinking about your work. And so vacation isn't necessarily vacation from your thoughts of science, um, but it does keep you off the screen so that then you're able to um just dream a little bit and think about and reflect and maybe come back to the lab with some new ideas.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And I

A PhD Passport Across Global Labs

SPEAKER_00 8:39

know we did a written interview with you a couple years back, and uh you said you're a huge fan of expedition books, and I think that reflected in your journey, in the science journey as well, because you were in multiple countries doing many research focusing in adjacent areas, cross-discipline, in fact. What what did this you were in what six different countries for years, each different, including China, which I'm happy to see that you were in Shanghai for a while.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, um I I I I've lost track exact. I mean, it's my s eight, yeah, and maybe eight countries as well. Um but to be quite honest, yeah, I spent first 27 years of my life in Perth, Australia, in that one kind of environment. Sand beaches, yep. I got that, right? A large part of my life, but it was was there. But having that opportunity to get a PhD allows you to then get a visa anywhere. And watching all my friends in their 20s travel to Europe and have their big vacations while I was in the lab. And I when I finished, it was like payback time. And so that was actually 27 years ago that I left Australia and I've just been kind of traveling ever since. And I think this is one of the things is a PhD does get you visa opportunities in in almost every country in the world.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Borderless. No border.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

And so when when you were deciding allocating, I mean, locate, relocate to these different countries, it's not a small deal as you get older, obviously. I mean, is there a storyline of how you moved from Perth to where what is the next star uh next door to Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and then to Europe, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah, um, I mean the move to Toronto was, you know, I having worked in op in ophthalmic biomaterials, I was quite interested in working in the spinal cord and and trying to help um help them. And also in the mid-90s, this is when Christopher Reeve, who was the original Superman, had a horse riding accident.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

That was very impactful.

unknown 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

For a lot of people, actually. I'm I was a huge fan of him in China. I was in China at the time, I think. No, at the time the Superman came out. Yeah. And that was one of few American movies made it to China. So, I mean, you know, he's my he's my idol. Yeah. I just say that.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, and I love sci-fi movies, and um, you know, if this could happen to Superman, it can happen to anyone.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Um, you know, just that kind of empathy-driven, oh okay, let's see if we can help someone there, you know. Also not realizing really how how much work has been put into trying to cure spinal cord injury. Yes. No, I I was probably a bit clueless about that. Um, but I ended up working in uh the lab of Molly Shoikat. Not sure if you uh know of her, but she's a tremendous researcher, and I was working with clinicians and um working in animal-based research in that time. So that was a clear motivation. But as most PhD students, I was broke um at the end of everything. Um, I sold my car to buy a one-way ticket to Toronto. My partner with m went with me. She later became my wife and partner for life. But um, that was a clear, deliberate transition from one topic to another. And then after a few years in um Toronto and really enjoying the culture, it was a little bit about, well, do we go back home to Australia and set things up or keep going? And so then that Europe's the natural progression. From that point, it was a bit of randomness, like where I ended up. I was a trailing spouse, my partner has the real job, I say, and she was working in a in a company. So I I had a lot of forced movements, like we're going to, for example, Southampton. And if you have a look at Southampton, it's like, well, there's not really much polymer chemistry there, there's not a lot of tissue engineering, what can I do? And so that forced me to then work in neuroimmunology and work in a neuroimmunology lab. So it's like forced transitions into a different field by moving. And then that just creates the interdisciplinariness of your career.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And of all these adventures, um, then you invented MELT electrowriting.

Electrospinning Explained Then MEW

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was it was an evolution uh from MELT Electric Spinning because when I moved to Europe, I was actually had the up, it was 2002. So I could work on this new technology at the time called electrospinning.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Okay, and that was um in the in the early years of electrospinning. And my challenge was actually to electrospin directly onto cells, meaning that I couldn't use organic solvents, and I had to use aqueous-based solutions. And there was a whole plan for for my postdoc there, and like within a few months, I just it was very clear this is this is failing dismally, and I'm not sure there is any and even today n no one can electrospin from aqueous solutions onto cells, and that's where the milk came in.

unknown 14:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I'm not a scientist, I'm just really a social media personnel, you know. Okay, and uh but when when we started 3D Hills maybe 10 years ago, I got into a random online quarrel with another professor about electro spinning. I had no idea what electrospinning was. So I think it will be beneficial if you can explain in common people's language of what electrospinning is. I I may actually find some graphics to supplement this podcast. Uh, hopefully I can find some good videos for it so that people can understand. But if you can summarize what this technology is and then how is this important for your subsequent invention, that will be wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Sure. So so electrospinning is when you apply a high voltage to a polymer solution. And I have to warn you, weird things happen when you apply voltages to liquids.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

And electrospinning is one case. So it starts generating lots and lots of fibers, a little bit like um ferry floss, right? If you think about that kind of non-woven material, but it's more compacted. And so these fibers are really small, and the idea of using electrospinning in medical research was that they were similar in size to collagen, and cells grew on them and they they love them. They're a very good membrane to work with, but they were kind of being investigated as a scaffold. So um uh they have a role they're random. They're random. You can't put a fiber within centimeters of where you want it to go, right? It's just blasting, spraying onto a collector. And this was a time when I started working with melts because the aqueous polymer solution electric spinning wasn't working, so I started working with melts. And they're they're more viscous. If you think about a plastic that's molten, it has much higher viscosity than, say, honey. And the result on the when you apply a voltage was actually this much longer elongated column of liquid, meaning that you could start putting your fibers approximately where you want. It wasn't very good when it was electric spinning, but actually you could now focus in where the fibers went in a random way rather than a big broad collection. So hopefully that helps.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, I think that does help. Um, how is this part of 3D printing and how is this different from extrusion 3D printing? Because you said that we spend a lot of resources in extrusion-based 3D printing, but it's not generating us some the the like outcome that we're hoping for. How can MEW or M Mel Electrical Writing be different?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Well, the s the simplest um difference is say with uh FDM 3D printing, so extrusion FDM, you're pushing something through a nozzle.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

What we're doing with MEW is we're pulling something from the nozzle. Yeah. And we're pulling it onto a flat collector. So if you're thinking of something being pulled, you might think like on a mandrel, but in this instance it's a flat collector, and it's being pulled by uh an electric field that's there. And there is a there is a strange phenomena where a column of liquid doesn't break up when a high voltage is applied to it. It's it's strange. So we get the small fibers by printing at extraordinarily low flow rates. So we pull the thread from the nozzle and we do it at about five or ten microliters an hour. Right? And that's an incredibly low flow rate. That's like one-tenth of a teardrop per hour of printing rates. And as a result, you get really small fibers.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah. Do you remember the moment that you you felt like this is a Eureka moment?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah. I mean, it was one of those things where you're kind of looking down the microscope and you kind of look up and you go, okay. And then you look down again. And yeah, there was a certain breathlessness with what was produced that it was like, oh, okay. I haven't seen this, and this is this is this is big, right? Because you you know, when you're in the bench at the bench a lot, especially when you're an experienced postdoc, you see a lot of things. You know, you see lots of different techniques and principles, and then this was something I just never seen before, and it happened at just such a phenomenal rate that I yeah, I it was breathless. And yeah, that was a that was a point where um uh I I went, okay, I'm gonna have to dedicate a lot more of my time to this.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And before this, did you like go through a lot of different iterations to tinker this process? Well, how many times, I mean, did you fail and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Gosh. Look, I think I mean yeah, I mean, it would be hundreds of times, right? Of different variations. And you know, looking back now, it made sense because uh we're working with probably a 10 variable system. So like how do you find a sweet spot when there's like 10 different variables can that can affect it all? And so you're you're you're iterating and you're trying things out. Um and um, you know, you're you're getting closer. It's it's a bit like when you go to an optometrist. They say, you know, is this one better or this one? And so you know, you're constantly working and finding out that, oh, this is trending in a better way. And then um combining with something else, it makes it better. And and it it takes a long time simply because you're not sure exactly what to do. As soon as you've done it, it's very f easy to then instruct someone else to do it immediately.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

I think that's one of the things about not knowing specifically what to do and and how it's so easy afterwards. Oh, if I just did this, then all these things would change.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

And you know, I bet it's more than a couple hundred times. I bet it's more than that. You know the problem with scientific communities sometimes, they we tend to publish success stories. You know, something worked, which obviously is very useful to people. But on the other hand, no one said I failed a thousand times doing this, various kind of things. Like, like retrospectively, when there is no AI and or large language motto was probably the right way to do things. But like had we have a database of failure, it would be so useful moving forward, isn't it? It's just a random thought.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, I mean, I yeah, like a journal called Honest Insights or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

The book of failure. That's right. So now I'm a clinician and uh uh I I need to see like, okay, so 3D printing versus MEW.

Skin Scaffolds And Nerve Insights

SPEAKER_00 20:51

What can MEW do that normal 3D printing cannot do from a solution perspective?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah, sure. So and I can, you know, sort of give some like all the all the different examples that are out there have all followed the similar principle where they look at the anatomical structure of the tissue you're trying to replace, and then you try and make something that approximates that structure. And when you're making uh things from much smaller uh unit sizes, you can actually start mimicking and building up complexities. And so um there are just new it's several examples of that. So because we're printing with the much finer objects, we're able to then produce something that looks a little bit more like us. If I think about implants that go into the body at the moment, they tend to be blocky, chunky materials that look nothing like us.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

And so um, if we think about a lot of the ECM in the body and the different striations and layers that exist throughout that, we can now start. Trying to build such tissues. And these are these are the approaches that have generally had really good outcomes with um uh with the research in melt electrode writing.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

So what are some of the examples that that you could do? What body parts would you work on first?

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Sure. I mean to to begin with, thin scaffolds are great, right? The technology doesn't make large volume materials. Yeah, you can, but it takes a bit of time and there's cost associated with that. So skin is the uh I think a great example. Uh I gave a talk at a conference in about 2017, and someone from L'Oreal was there.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

And was really interested in maybe we can make a bi like a bilayered um product that has a membrane where the basement membrane typically is, and then have a scaffold on the other side made from meltelectroriding that the the dermis would be. Yeah, this this this worked in the fact that we have a really well-formed epidermis where the the cells start looking like they normally do in in natural tissue, and that's just because the fibroblasts that are adjacent to them but not in direct contact are able to extrude excrete all the factors that allow the keratinocytes within the epidermis to um to thrive.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

But yeah, I've I've shown these sections of skin, these these um uh artificial skin to to researchers and they initially look at it and they go, that's natural skin, and then they go, No, wait a sec, hold on. And and you see that double take. And working with L'Oreal has been great on this because they challenge us to produce things at like a really high throughput. And this also helped a lot in uh in the research as well, and like trying to do that translation. Now, not not from not into the clinic, but translation into um uh an in vitro product that can be widely used, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, yeah. For like for for them, probably toxicity analysis, so there are new cosmetic products, I'm assuming, or some other things. Now, you you started with cornea. How how is that field evolving? Is this is this MEW is applicable to that as well?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Not not really. I mean, I'd I I'd love to make that connection.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

But but I I I feel that you know, I don't want to put a square peg in a round hole.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Right. And and so um it's probably been a good 25 years since I worked on the cornea. So it would mean for me to personally really catch up a lot on this. And I think since I I went to um Molly Shaw Kat's lab, you know, my my tissue, my tissue of interest is like the spinal cord or the nervous system. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

And so how about spinal cord? Is this uh working?

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Well, for within spinal cord, you know, again, you have the issue well, can MEW really help? And so quite recently we had a postdoc here from Germany, and we asked this question about getting two types of cells mixing that normally don't. So in spinal cord injury, Schwann cells are normally taken from the peripheral nerve and transplanted, but it doesn't really work because Schwann cells and astrocytes don't like each other. They don't mix, they form these boundaries. So, what we've done here is to like put down really discrete single fibers and actually put Schwann cells and astrocytes and get them to intermingle. And um, so it's quite phenomenal. I mean, this is unpublished data, but it's it's gonna be great to show that you can induce cells that normally just don't like each other to mix and intermingle. And then this also now allows things like neurons to grow over in through the other side. So it's it's an interesting area of of like topography and in vitro research and how that could inform in vivo. But uh that's kind of where things are at the moment. Again, it's a little bit hard to think specifically about spinal cord injury and applying MEW to it. You know, remember when I said I had that breakthrough of meltelectro rioting?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

This was um a time when I was doing pretty much, you know, 80% of my time was on spinal cord injury and and working on that tissue.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

And and then when MEW came along, it's like, well, okay, now this is taking a life of its own. And so um I think the my focus on the nervous system had to sort of be set aside a little bit as this technology that could be used in so many more tissues gains traction and then gets used in in other just as important injuries and diseases.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, it became a momentum. It's become movement, is what I'm trying to say. The MEW is a movement in a way.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, I think the past five years have been quite dramatic, actually. And this is this is thanks to funding from the European Union and also China doing doing a lot of investment in that. And and you know, if you invest invest in any area, you get a lot of outcome and it's policy driven sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

But I'll tell you what, it's a delight to wake up and see there's a new paper and go and check it out and see what what cool things people have done and you know used it for.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

And all the tissues.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

I'm not a scientist, right? But I have a platform called Pitch 3D, we where we evaluate startups and stuff, and people bring us all kinds of applications. Um they're more of a solution focused, and a lot of them use various 3D printing techniques. You know, I've seen companies in our last brief less than 10 year is span. People want to regenerate cornea, people want to regenerate neurons. I mean, they they they're all there, but listening to you, it seems like this kind of dreamlike goal has been there decades ago. So it's really actually a short period of time if you think about it, how we start to tackle those problems. I'm just kind of, you know, it's you know, like, okay, you already worked on cornea, what, 30 years ago? Almost 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_02 28:25

People have been doing this for working on cornea for centuries and they're still doing it.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

That's one of the most sobering things, like so like with spinal cord injury. Like since I was working in about the year 2000, there have been some improvements, but not much. Like 25 years.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yeah. And it's not just bioprinting or bioassembly. I've seen like other startups pitching to odds just to pharmatech, like other biotech techniques to trying to regenerate spinal cord injury or peripheral nerve injury. It seems like there there is some new solutions, but it's not the holy grail, I can make you stand up again kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

And so it's slower than our brain. Yeah. You know, the thing is a lot of the motivation for what we're doing in science is spot on and it's accurate. What we lack are the tools to be able to deliver on the thing that we're trying to solve. And if I think of MEW as like one tool on top of all these other different tools, it's probably not going to be a single technology that's the magic bullet. It's going to be a combination of those. And then things get complex because of what combinations and and and all of these different permutations, and suddenly that experimental tree gets so um Well, now we're onto the topic of tools.

The MEWron Open Source Printer

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Um let's talk about the open source hardware movement with MEW RON.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Yeah. The MURON. Yeah, we call it the Muron.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yeah, the MURON.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

The Muron, yeah. So um so ME MEW Meltelectro Writing is also called Mew. A lot of people who um who work with it. And and so it if you think about the cost of getting involved in this technology, it's it's significant because the customer base isn't that huge, right? So we borrowed an open source printer that serves the hobby community, and they're about $700, and uh they're really robust. There's like a um it's it's it's a high performing 3D printer, and it there's a whole community around that, and it's about hobbyists, and and the costs are so low. So, so what you know, maybe maybe I'll just sort of go back a little bit. Like if what we're trying to do is we're trying to um use a processing technology to come up with some new design of a scaffold that can then be uh used to solve a problem. So one of the things I think is interesting is that if you get that processing technology and you you strip it down to the absolute basics, you change a fundament, and in this case, it could be cost, it could be size, it could be switching from syringe over to filament, it could be a range of different things, and then build it back up, you end up with the piece of equipment where suddenly you're asking fundamentally different questions. Okay. So in this instance, we now have a $7 MEW printer. The commercial ones are, I don't know, $50,000, $100,000.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Wait, did you say $7?

SPEAKER_02 31:44

$700, sorry. Oh, $700, okay. Did I say $7?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Maybe $7 in Uganda, but maybe not actually not in Uganda.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

You maybe it can get below $100 in the future.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

But reduce the cost. Yeah, definitely. Reduce the cost, and then suddenly things change because you don't uh you don't care so much if you destroy it. All right. You could put it in an extreme environment and if it if it breaks, you can just fix it with small dollar components. There's no warranty. If if if something comes into the lab, then you know it's worth $100,000. The last thing you want to be doing is opening it up, avoiding the warranty, and starting to model it.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Absolutely. I have seen actually a real life example of that.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Yeah. It comes to the pro it comes to an issue.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

People don't even want to use it because not not just tinker, but not even want to use it.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Yeah. Um it it does come to the issue, like if if everyone despise pre-built systems, then everyone starts doing the same kind of research.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

All right. I I see that a little bit with extrusion-based spyprinting. Um and, you know, how how can you iterate and how can you invent new things using a system that is low cost, fully modifiable, and it's been tremendous. We have something like 20 in the lab at the moment. And you just it's a printer that just does one thing and does one thing really well. It it doesn't try to like like a bioprint, it tries to print all these body parts. Like now we can say, well, let's just have this muron. The only thing it's gonna do is print a nerve guide. It's that's all I've got to do. Dedicated to a body part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or uh a plastic, a certain plastic. This is the we don't we you know and we can build it in a week and then it's it's running. So it's it it does change a lot. Also, you know, if you're looking at the world dynamics with Meltelectro writing, Europe, Australia, China dominate the number of publications, number of labs.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

But didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Oh yeah, and and now I'm on team USA. It's like, okay, how do we how do we how do we enter this and um into this market? And the way is I do it disruptively. And that's where the muron is able to disrupt the the whole process of acquiring this technology. Together with Ohio State University, we do have a build your own MEW Printal workshop. It's held every summer. Last summer, this summer.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Can I attend it at some point?

SPEAKER_02 34:16

It's probably a bit late because it's all the parts are being ordered in. But yeah, it's um it's it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Is it only for University of Oregon students?

SPEAKER_02 34:26

No, no. This is it was open for anyone in the world. Um, I think we had eight applicants this year. So that'll be great. Eight people will come in. It's a good number, actually. Eight people come in, build their own Muron, take it home with them, and um then they they have a little bit of skill in how to operate, run it, fix it, etc. And um we just keep doing this every year.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

But let me know the link. Uh maybe I'll join you next year, but at least give you a shout-out next year for people to sign up to your workshop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

So so what it does, it just fundamentally changes the landscape of of of how you do how you use this technology and then all the different variants and and personalization. So I said we have 20 murons, but probably only about four or five are the same as each other. And the others are like unique systems that you know we we publish, and then we can also have them open source so anyone else can reproduce what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah, it seems like you're stimulating creativity, which is something that's very difficult to harvest, to be honest. You cannot force people to be creative. So I think open source in general is kind of stimulating people's creativity. I mean, now we're in this era of AI war. The open source versus proprietary software is clearly demonstrating the the very polar opposite effect of what's happening, you know, is interesting as well. I'm observing it closely. I mean, obviously, 3D printing industry is not as well funded as AI industry, and this is still, you know, within our niche, this is very interesting to observe. The open source growth, the metrics that over time, since you're fairly new, you're like, what, 20 years old or something, versus a much older process, the extrusion-based 3D printing, um, and a bunch of other processes. It would be interesting to see the metrics or growth over time. Um, and since I have a lot of free time, I'm gonna try to. I'll show you.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

We're actually about to publish a review, so we've got some of those

Limits Of MEW And AI Control

SPEAKER_02 36:28

numbers as well. And actually just on AI as well, you know, yeah. The the because we're pulling from the nozzle, we have some excellent visual access to really important information. So we really are leaning into having AI-based fabrication. Yeah. Where and this this also is cheap once you know how to do things.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Like it should also be able to go into the muron and maybe be able just to produce things without you really knowing how it does that. Right. So um at the moment there's a there's a need for coding, you know, a certain technique. Like you don't just need an MEW printer, you need an MEW user in a way. Because there's a bit of an art to to to work with it.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

And so it'd be great to take that away, that art away, and then just be able to have it as a system anyone can use that's yeah, you know, be more consistent in terms of generating the report, uh results. Well, in terms of that, just you know, we're not trying to de dig too deep in the technical aspect of things. What do you think are some of the I mean you already mentioned some of the advantages, obviously, from Mew. Um, but what about some of the limitations and things that you could improve upon from both the process side to the material side?

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Sure. So MEW does, you know, it makes things that are highly porous um compared to other scaffolds, but it doesn't make things that are large. So they they tend to be limited to, you know, um several centimeters in in width through to um the height, you know, maybe less than a probably less than a centimeter under most circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

One centimeter, okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Yeah. So it's it's definitely small, much, much smaller than what FDM can produce, because the throughput of the polymer out is is a lot less. But at the same time, it's it's more than what say two-photon polymerization, another high resolution technology can do. So, you know, the the the ideal technology is where you have like high resolution and significant volume to it.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Right. If you think about a lung, right? That would be fantastic to produce. It's it that's that's one of the hardest things to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Um all right. Okay, so let's see. You wrote an article about taming the jet. It's one of the highest one of the highest referenced. It's very technical as well. You want to just share a little bit about that article?

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Well, what we try to do, I mean, that's actually that's actually part two. So we created a series of papers.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

And in 2015, there was uh another paper which has summarized all of the melt electrospinning work done in the history, right, from the turn of the 20th century.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Okay. I need to find that one.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

And then five years later, we wrote taming the jet.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

2019, 2019.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Yeah, which was just a follow-on. You know, we don't have to talk about all the same old stuff again. That really reflected the fact that we were able to master and control the jet. You know, when we if you were looking back in the early days in 2013 or so, we were having, you know, a lot of defects in there, and we weren't sure exactly why. And um I think then the community was able to work out, oh, this is this is why this is happening, and we solved it. So that's where the taming the jet uh came. But you don't just want to make beautiful structures, you want to be able to apply them to and put them to to work. Um and so I think we're actually just finishing that third part in the review.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Um and that's this is a little bit more like from taming the jet to tailored structures for tissue engineering. And um, that's definitely what's happened in the past five years. A lot more applications have been tested out, and also a lot of different plastics have been tested out. They're two major focuses of research. And then I think also a big trend has been the imaging of the jet and actually how that would tie up to AI and and sort of camera vision and computer vision within that. And and the final actually, the final thing that I think is going to be transformative is a really good user interface.

unknown 40:46

Right?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Yes. The better the user interface, the more people you can have working with a system.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Foolproof, like me. Yeah, and if I can use it, you definitely pass.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Yeah, and and I and I'd like to have, you know, someone who has no experience, like say like a biologist, right, who knows that want to make something, you're not sure exactly how to take all that jargon out. And that's where I think a good user interface, probably generated using a large language model, right? This this is improving a lot together with AI-based fabrication to really enable you potentially to even upload scans of tissues that you want recreated, and then it will try and approximate that for you, right? Wow, that would be amazing. That would be cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Just for some ideas in my head. Uh I mean, I mean, crazy ideas in my head. But yes, I can see that. I can see that, but then I know it's gonna take probably decades to actually get there. It's possible to take decades, or maybe shorter, who knows? Um and then the other, so you know, I've been going through your publications.

Biofabrication Beyond Bioprinting

SPEAKER_00 41:49

I have to say, there's no way we can talk about all the publications that you have published in this 60-minute conversation, which is approaching two-thirds now. But I just picked up a couple because they're the top cited one on your Google Scholar. And the other one I think is very interesting, and also I heard you talk about this in the past, is do not equate bioprinting with biofabrication. And I have to say, I have committed crimes by doing this quite regularly. So I apologize for that right now, just right now. And I would I will definitely try my best not to equate and be more precise, but I also think at the time, at the same time, it would be very helpful if you can just make sure, clarify the boundary of these words and how do you envision biofabrication really really is going to be from now on?

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Yeah, I I probably have a different um definition compared to most in the community. My feeling is that biofabrication is the automation of tissue engineering or the automation of um of being able to produce tissues because bioprinting is one aspect. And I've spent so many years also manually pipetting, right? Yeah, absolutely. And now a robot.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

That's why I didn't become a scientist, by the way, is the pipetting part. Like theoretically, I understand everything, but these manual work, I am no good.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Well, it was for me, your mind wanders and it's like, oh, did I just pipette this in here or not? And then you have to throw everything out. You can't even see.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

You can't even see. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Yeah. Um but you know, I I think bioprinting is a tool, right? And and I think we we need to kind of gather the tools. We need to gather our abilities to better automate and better produce things. And, you know, in the early days, you know, extrusion based bioprinting was considered like a lot of people just used it for biofabrication. And for me, I thought that was a very risky thing because if extrusion based bioprinting. Training doesn't really deliver on the goods, then the entire field of biofabrication becomes under assault. And for me, the automation pr automated production of tissues is very logical. I don't think too too many people would think that's not the future of production, right? So for me that's biofabrication. And um extrusion-based bioprinting is one. There's also like volumetric uh bioprinting. There's many different forms of bioprinting. And and I think the from a a simplicity's uh sake, everyone just focused on extrusion-based bioprinting, which um I think it's probably had I don't know, it's probably billions of dollars of RD spent on it. And there's a a real question, has it delivered on that? You know, since 2010, this became a thing, and you've had a lot of money put onto it. Have we done all of those things that we um said we would or promised? I'm not sure, but I I think the solution is a a lot a lot more thoughtful way in how we're using automation when we're assembling things.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Um So yeah, I also learned, I mean, by just reading briefly the some of these articles, bioassembly is also part of the biofabrication. Is bioreactors the same thing as bioassembly? Are these different or because I've definitely seen bioreactors a lot of different places now in commercial space?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah, I mean I think it's part of the automation process, right? And um because you need to mature a tissue and also you need to be changing things. I don't think you just set a bioreactor to the same conditions for a week, you know, go away and then come back. It must be constantly changing with time. And you know, you know, maybe in the future, whenever we print a heart, all right, it's not gonna be, oh, suddenly it's working. You know, we're gonna know exactly what we're doing by then. And it will be like hundreds of variables switching on and off in synchronization, aided by the natural repair of the of the body, but not, you know, governed by it. So I think it's gonna be an incredibly complex task and that maybe this is where AI is gonna be helpful, being able to help us pass out the you know, and give us our best guesses and to develop protocols that enable us to understand really complex production approaches. And when you know when when when it's hard for your mind to get around like a five-dimension graph, imagine how hard if there's a hundred variables in in that, like a hundred dimensional.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Well, that does sound like something you need AI for. I mean, this is biology is actually probably one of the hardest problems in for humanity, is to really understand our own biology. Um, so people obviously would kind of like look at AI nowadays since to promise someone who's smarter than us who can figure this out for us or something like that. But anyways, I digress. But uh but it is something that I think it it just like you said, you you want many powerful tools working together to achieve a great result uh for biofabrication. So I think AI could be playing a pretty important role in that. So

Implantables By 2030 Plus Vivotex

SPEAKER_00 47:19

what do you think with MEW, what do you think in the next three, five, ten years? So in other words, shortmit to long term, that you have vision in terms of either research or just clinical application, either either direction. What do you think the the the trajectory is?

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Well, there's gonna be two general trajectories. One will be implantables, and I think they may be close to human implantation in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

The the plastics that are used are tend to be medical grade polymers, and also polymers working like melt processing is established for decades in safely making biomedical devices. So that part's not strange. Um there's already FDM-based biomaterials out there, so now the only thing we're changing is a high voltage, so we're not changing too much using this. So I I definitely by 2030 there will be MEW implants in people for sure. Because of the safety of doing that is is is there.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Is this going to be skin? Because you mentioned skin is probably the easiest go to.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

I I honestly don't know. I mean, it could be skin, um, it could be I I think the thing is everyone has their own specialist and the disease or injury they're trying to treat. And MEW is now coming up on the radar, so you know it it's just really hard to fully gauge. If we look at the in vitro work that's being done, that's really compelling. And so maybe then that ties together with the in vivo results. You know, some some great products that come uh come to mind is in an in Perth, in with my hometown, there's a lab that is uh making hard fouls. And these hard fouls are are are better than existing because they really the the the open up really well, so the patency is like really really good. There's some great work actually out of China where um you have um I think these are cardiomyocytes as well. What I liked about the study where you actually had two two fiber plates held together with this tiny strand of fibers, is that the cells adhered to one part of the scaffold and then moved off it and then used another part of the scaffold for its mature mature period. And so that's quite interesting, really seeing this transition of cells behaving this way at the start of their culture and then really changing in in how they behave later on. So there's that hernia meshes, uh yeah, um, come to m come to mind as being something that could be really um useful prolapse meshes, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Well, you also had a a startup. You're a co-founder of a startup, correct?

unknown 50:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

And uh that that's also working on some of and applications with MEW and it's called uh Vivotex. Yeah. You want to tell us what uh what VivoText is doing nowadays?

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Sure. And so VivoTex is is like the accessibility thing. So on one side we have the the Muron open source where people can get access and research. But what Vivotex does is they they just sell you really good scaffolds. And they sell that to you in a format that you can just start using in your own process. So you don't need to have a printer, you don't need to have a user, you don't need to spend six, twelve months getting this up and going. You can just buy scaffolds and start using them the next week. So, you know, what we've done is industrialize the process so that the scaffold itself can just be a commodity that you can buy and use. And I think it's it's a tremendous opportunity, especially for companies as well, that you know, have time pressures, they already have existing workflows, and we're really trying to ensure that what we're making fits at Vivertex fits into those workflows. And so you can really bypass a lot of time and a lot of money in trying to acquire your own system and and learning knowledge. Because I don't think the printers are there yet, right? Probably in another five years you can get a printer and it will just work really intuitively and automatically, but it's not there.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Yes, actually, there is no commercially you can purchase MEW printer, is there? It's only open source.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

No, there you can for sure. There's there's about six companies, all up based out of um Europe and and China, who actually have MEW printers or an MEW head on their bioprinter.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Okay, that's good to know.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Yeah, yeah. So you can get commercial systems, but you know, I I I do think that um the price is really high because the customer base isn't big.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Very small, yes.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Right. And it's just the scale of economics and where things are at.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

And I just also MEW users are very expensive to acquire as well. Yeah, sure. You're paying a salary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

And there's a there's a good growing number of them, um, just through a lot of the education that's happened. But uh yeah, they're expensive systems and um, you know, it can just be done more efficiently in in other ways. And MEW is not like bioprinting, where you can actually have a product on the shelf for years and it doesn't change. Whereas with bioprinting, you've got your gel there and you want to put cells in, and so you you need that bioprinter there to do your research. But um here you can have an off-the-shelf product that can sit there for a long time, is easily sterilized and um you know, and properly packaged. So that's where Vivertex is focused on. It's just the accessibility through um making the products a commodity.

Getting Started And Best Materials

SPEAKER_00 53:15

So after all this, do you know everybody in MEW community?

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

How do you monitor this community if it's growing? Like do you have a lot of people? Well, it was easy. Um Do you have a convention every every year?

SPEAKER_02 53:30

In in um In February, I took part in the iCorp program in the US. And so that's where you had to do a hundred interviews. And so yeah, we reached out and we we learned new people working in MEW and was able to talk to them. And um so so yeah. It's great. It's actually really, really good. And it was it's a six-week period. So and and that's really about customer surveys and trying to understand the landscape. And this was actually with relation to the Muron, like the open source printer. Like how can we make it? How can we make it better? How can we make it more accessible? Is there ways we can better train people or have experiences?

SPEAKER_00 54:11

So um Are you allowed to share the inside of that?

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Yeah, I mean, the inside is actually one of the things that we really learn is that you know, in 3D printing you have someone called makers who like to make stuff, but there are two clear distinct types. There is one called the builder maker. And what they want to do is actually assemble and put together that printer, test it out, and then they go, okay, job's done. Where's the next thing to build? And then you have a user maker that doesn't care how the printer works, they just want to make stuff with it. Okay, and and people are generally in those two camps where you know they either really enjoy building things and getting it to work and then handing it off, or you know, just printing. And so people who just want to print, you know, you can get a bamboo printer and you can make some great things at home, but you know, you're you're limited by the printer that is there. Whereas uh and the builder makers are really less common than user makers. And it's also very rare to have someone who's both. Both he likes to build a printer and then actually use it for for printing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

So, you know, for people like me who are just a clinician, limited engineering background, want to get into biofabrication, what are your some advice? I know this is a very general question, but um, I think read.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

You know, I think you have to be mindful of any new technology of hype, and you just want to be able to filter through the hype a little bit, um, understand what's been done before you. And also the people that are before you, that those super smart, intelligent people. And you know, they weren't able to work it out. So you should, you know, be a little bit cautious, you know, as you're going forward that you know that you're you're making the right decisions. Um and uh so my my recommendation is to really start off with a a a bunch of reading and and then maybe learn about some of the different technologies and the strengths and weaknesses of of those. And I think what you can do is you know, ideally have two technologies which have weaknesses that you bring them together and then they don't have the weaknesses anymore. You know, it's like one plus one equals three. Um and trying to find the combination of technologies that really do enable you to do what you want.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

So for people who want to uh who are working on Muron, who's becoming part of the community, what is the first project you want them to try on?

SPEAKER_02 56:46

Um the first thing I actually like them to do is to print with medical grade polymers.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Like the like my there's there's a lot of things you can print with, but if you start printing with medical grade polymers, the outputs are better. Like it just prints so much nicer, as well as being the kind of material that you would actually want to use later on. So in our lab, we just don't have any Sigma Aldridge polymers or and that. We we really try and work with medical. So medical grade PCL, send me a message, I'll send you a Falcon tube. I'll but I've done that to many people saying, look, just use this polymer and then yeah, and then they have like a multiple step change improvements over that. And it's it's a little bit because the purity of the the the PCL that's used in the medical grade is better, so it just processes better. And you know, my my biggest recommendation to anyone starting is just work with high quality polymers, maybe a bit expensive if you finish the Falcon tube that I give you, but it's ultimately worth it.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

That's an amazing offer. I gotta put that make sure I put that in show notes. So we are reaching the end, but I feel like this is it can be just the beginning of many conversations in the future because I I can see this as a growing community, evolving technology. I can see that every year something new is gonna happen. So hopefully I get to invite you back. Now, as the end, uh, we're at the end. So can you provide some possibility for people to perhaps contact your lab, how to get that free filament that you're talking about in other resources to learn?

SPEAKER_02 58:27

Yeah, so it's easy. I mean, it's easy to find me if you Google my name and or if you even just Melcheletro Writing or MEW. Um I'm based at the University of Oregon, and our lab does a lot of internal work, but we also do a lot of work where we're just helping others. And so we make sure we carve out time to assist others in the research that they want.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Awesome. I'll definitely put the links that you know we have talked about in our show notes. Uh, Professor, thank you so much for talking with us today. I hope this is going to be the first of many conversations in the future.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

Great. Thank you. It's been awesome to speak with you.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed do not constitute medical or financial advice. The technologies and procedures discussed may not be commercially available or suitable for every case. Always consult with a licensed professional.