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A new process for manufacturing prosthetic limbs could be a game-changer for amputees around the world.
Nine out of 10 amputees in the world don't have access to a proper prosthetic. The startup company LIMBER Prosthetics & Orthotics, Inc. aims to do something to address this problem by 3D printing complete one-piece structurally sound prosthetic limbs.
LIMBER started as a grassroots, student-driven research effort at University of California, San Diego, taught by structural engineering Professor Falko Kuester.
They were trying to improve the process for building a custom prosthetic. The traditional method requires prosthetists who are like sculptors. They carve a model of the residual limb by hand - a time-consuming process that is expensive and can't be easily scaled with current mass manufacturing techniques.
That's when Kuester approached one of his Ph.D. students, Luca De Vivo Nicoloso, with the idea of printing prosthetics.
A year later, De Vivo, who was then a teaching assistant in the class, Joshua Pelz, who was then a Ph.D. student in the class and Herb Barrack, a certified prosthetist and orthotist with more than three decades of experience,...