A Novel Semi‐Automated Pipeline for Optimizing 3D‐Printed Drug Formulations

3D printing offers a promising approach to creating personalized medicines. However, costly, expertise‐dependent trial‐and‐error methods hinder efficient drug formulation, posing challenges for tailoring treatments to individual patients. To address this, a novel pipeline is developed for 3D printing using selective laser sintering (SLS), replacing laborious steps with advanced computational methods. A differential evolution‐based optimizer generates formulations for the desired drugs, while a deep learning ensemble predicts the optimal printing parameters along with associated confidence intervals. Manual handling is only required for the final formulation preparation and printing processes. The pipeline successfully generates diverse formulations, composed of a wide variety of materials and with high printability probabilities. This was validated by successfully printing 80% of the generated drug formulations and achieving 92% accuracy in predicting printing parameters. Notably, the time required to develop and print a new drug formulation is decreased to a single day. This study is the first to demonstrate a semiautomated, 3D printing drug formulation design and printing parameter selection pipeline. Furthermore, the pipeline is not limited to SLS printing but can also be adapted for the optimization of other 3D printing technologies or formulation platforms.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Intelligent Systems
Published
2025-05-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202401112
Citations
4
Primary Topic
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.70
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article

A Novel Semi‐Automated Pipeline for Optimizing 3D‐Printed Drug Formulations

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4 citations
Advanced Intelligent Systems
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
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article

A Novel Semi‐Automated Pipeline for Optimizing 3D‐Printed Drug Formulations

David Shorthouse, Atheer Awad, Abdul W. Basit, Miguel R. D. Rodrigues, Youssef Abdalla, Martin Ferianc, Haya A. Alfassam, Mine Orlu, Ruochen Qiao
article en
4 citations

Abstract

3D printing offers a promising approach to creating personalized medicines. However, costly, expertise‐dependent trial‐and‐error methods hinder efficient drug formulation, posing challenges for tailoring treatments to individual patients. To address this, a novel pipeline is developed for 3D printing using selective laser sintering (SLS), replacing laborious steps with advanced computational methods. A differential evolution‐based optimizer generates formulations for the desired drugs, while a deep learning ensemble predicts the optimal printing parameters along with associated confidence intervals. Manual handling is only required for the final formulation preparation and printing processes. The pipeline successfully generates diverse formulations, composed of a wide variety of materials and with high printability probabilities. This was validated by successfully printing 80% of the generated drug formulations and achieving 92% accuracy in predicting printing parameters. Notably, the time required to develop and print a new drug formulation is decreased to a single day. This study is the first to demonstrate a semiautomated, 3D printing drug formulation design and printing parameter selection pipeline. Furthermore, the pipeline is not limited to SLS printing but can also be adapted for the optimization of other 3D printing technologies or formulation platforms.

Advanced Intelligent SystemsVol. 7(11)
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (SA), University of Hertfordshire (GB), University College London (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 10%
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
2.70
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