Artificial joints

2023: Perm company creates the production of artificial joints and endoprostheses for 1.5 billion rubles

The Ural Scientific Research Institute of Composite Materials (UNIIKM) and its subsidiary Uglekon signed an agreement with Promsvyazbank (PSB) on cooperation in creating the production of medical devices for orthopedics and surgery. The press service of the credit institution announced this at the end of August 2023. Read more here.

2016: Joints from biomaterials

Joint and bone replacement technologies have come a long way, plastic and ceramic-based parts have taken over metal parts, and the latest generation of artificial bones and joints goes even further: they will be made from biomaterials so that they practically merge with the body. This was made possible, of course, thanks to 3D printing.

By 2016, surgeons at Southampton General Hospital Great Britain had invented a technique by which an elderly patient's hip implant is held in place with "glue" made from the patient's own stem cells. In addition, University of Toronto professor Bob Pilliar took the process to the next level by creating next-generation implants that actually mimic human bone.

Using a process that binds a replacement bone component (using ultraviolet light) into incredibly complex structures with extreme precision, Pilliar and his team create a tiny network of channels and trenches that carry nutrients in the implant itself.

The grown bone cells of the patient are then distributed along this network, closing the bone with the implant. Over time, the artificial bone component dissolves, and naturally grown cells and tissues retain the shape of an implant^[1].

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