1, bionic design
Bionic design or bionics is to learn from some special functions of biology and improve machine design. Studying biology, imitating the characteristics of biology, self-organization, self-growth, self-generation, heredity and many other biological characteristics and laws, enlightening manufacturing and forming new manufacturing technology principles. The application of these bionic principles in manufacturing technology will promote the reform of manufacturing technology.
2, biological manufacturing engineering
At the end of last century, the United States put forward tissue engineering, which processes cells into materials and tissues. Its applications include medical equipment, plastic implants, tissue engineering prostheses, artificial organs and so on. From the perspective of manufacturing science, tissues and organs are complex machines assembled by various functional cells according to specific structures. Accurately locate, arrange and assemble cells in three-dimensional space, make the embryonic form of human tissue, cultivate it on three-dimensional scaffold, and finally develop into a tissue structure with life function. This is the new direction of manufacturing technology development. Aiming at the application of biomedicine, bio-manufacturing engineering can be divided into four levels according to the biological characteristics of the processed materials, and the manufacturing technical difficulty required by the four levels is gradually improved.
The first level: making personalized models of tissues or organs with biocompatible materials for surgical planning, simulation and artificial limb aided design and processing.
The second level: materials with good biocompatibility but no biodegradability exist in the body for a long time, and the products are artificial organs or implants that can replace some functions of tissues or organs.
The third level: materials with good biocompatibility and biodegradability are gradually differentiated, decomposed, absorbed and discharged in the human body, mainly all kinds of scaffolds with specific shapes and structures needed by tissue engineering. Used as a temporary scaffold for cell growth and tissue regeneration, assisting and promoting the repair of organs and tissues.
The fourth level: using living cells as processing and manufacturing materials, three-dimensional cell piles with specific cell spatial distribution structure are made, which are called tissue-like precursors. The research contents include the design and manufacture of artificial scaffold, in vitro biological platform of artificial active organs, environmental construction and control of organ reconstruction, etc. Biomimetic materials of cells and extracellular matrix are artificially constructed by microfluidic transmission technology to realize three-dimensional controllable assembly of cells and living bodies.
3, biological treatment engineering
Using the synthetic process, life function and activity characteristics of organisms, including the preparation, processing and signal detection of compounds (drugs, food, chemicals, materials and energy).
Biomanufacturing is a new direction of manufacturing technology development in recent years. In the manufacturing technology challenge in 2020, the United States listed it as one of the main directions of 1 1, which was increasingly recognized and participated by scientists in biomedicine, materials science, manufacturing science and other fields. Many universities and research institutes in China have carried out relevant research work.