Laboratories are increasingly making use of the 3D printing technology to develop 3D printed drugs, lab-on-a-chip systems and even bioprint tissues and organs. With such transformative changes taking place, 3D printing is redefining what is possible in medicine and R&D.

Hantavirus, transmitted from rodents to humans is one of the highest concerns for future pandemics. Researchers have produced a detailed blue print of a protein complex that the Ande Virus uses to infect the host cells. This move will help design effective vaccines and antibody therapies against the deadly Hantavirus.

Researchers have developed a new type of 3D-printable material that mimics the human tissue’s ability to sort and filter, allowing certain molecules to pass through while keeping others out. This material can be used in a variety of applications across medicine, water and robotics.

A molecular material developed at Kyushu University can convert visible sunlight into ultraviolet light under ordinary outdoor conditions. The solid-state system uses photon upconversion to generate UV light from lower-energy photons, opening potential applications in air purification, photocatalysis and low-intensity 3D printing.

Photopolymer resins enable highly precise 3D printing, but their cured structures are usually difficult to recycle. Researchers at Yokohama National University have now developed an initiator-free anthracene-based resin that can be reshaped and reused multiple times while remaining compatible with high-resolution stereolithography.

A machine-learning strategy has generated a new class of ultra-high strength and ductility steel for 3D printing that costs less, resists rust, and requires only a fraction of the usual processing time.

Modern biologics and cell therapy programs increasingly rely on workflows that can generate high-quality cell lines and physiologically relevant 3D models with both speed and reproducibility. Yet many laboratories continue to experience bottlenecks rooted in manual processes, heterogeneous culture formats, and fragmented instrumentation. These challenges introduce variability, constrain throughput, and make it difficult to compare results across experiments or sites.

Honey bees navigate with striking individual precision, according to a drone-based study by researchers at the University of Freiburg. High-resolution 3D tracking shows that each bee follows its own consistent route between hive and food source, using landscape landmarks to stay on course. The findings reveal far greater navigational accuracy than previously assumed from the waggle dance.

Despite substantial investment in pharmaceutical R&D, clinical success rates remain low. As it stands, 90 % of drug candidates entering human trials fail due to unforeseen toxicity or limited efficacy in humans. A key contributor to this attrition is the limited predictive power of traditional preclinical models, particularly 2D cell cultures and animal studies, which often fall short in recapitulating the complexity of human biology. This gap is particularly evident in oncology and organ-specific toxicity assessments, where cellular context and microenvironmental interactions play a critical role in drug response.

Researchers in Germany have uncovered how elephants achieve their remarkable tactile precision: the whiskers covering their trunks combine a stiff base with a soft, resilient tip, creating a built-in sensing gradient.