BioFabUSA / ARMI | AIChE

BioFabUSA / ARMI

BioFabUSA Manufacturing the Future of Biofabrication


About BIOFABUSA

ARMI’s BioFabUSA, sponsored by the Department of Defense, focuses on biomanufacturing and looks to bridge the gap between early scientific research and later-stage product development by advancing critical technologies to enable large-scale biological manufacturing efforts.

The technical scope for BioFabUSA work includes innovations across five focus areas:

  • (1) Cell Selection, Culture and Scale-up
  • (2) Biomaterial Selection and Scale-up
  • (3) Tissue Process Automation and Monitoring
  • (4) Tissue Maturing Technologies
  • (5) Tissue Preservation and Transport

A major objective of ARMI | BioFabUSA’s Education and Workforce Development strategy is to develop modular training programs and associated certifications or credentialing to drive the development of effective cross-disciplinary training required in the biofabrication industry. The ARMI | BioFabUSA Fall 2020 Education and Workforce Development Project Call seeks members of industry, academia and non-profits that have experience in, or educational assets that support or are related to the design, operation, and support of the modules of the Tissue Foundry. Although a proposal was due 1/22/21, stay tuned as it has yet to be announced who is awarded.

For more information on membership, please visit here

 

April 14th - ARMI BioFabUSA partnered with Nexight Group to produce the New National Technology Roadmap for Pandemic Response and Recovery report. The technical roadmap resulting from this initiative has been developed to guide a wide variety of stakeholders on the technologies, platforms, and infrastructure needed to accelerate their response and recovery to COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Access the report and read more here

December 1st - BioFabUSA Fall 2020 EWD Project Call has an upcoming Full Proposal Deadline: January 22, 2021

A major objective of ARMI | BioFabUSA’s Education and Workforce Development strategy is to develop modular training programs and associated certifications or credentialing to drive the development of effective cross-disciplinary training required in the biofabrication industry. The ARMI | BioFabUSA Fall 2020 Education and Workforce Development Project Call seeks members of industry, academia and non-profits that have experience in, or educational assets that support or are related to the design, operation, and support of the modules of the Tissue Foundry.

Read more details on the proposal call here

October 16th - Asymmetrex’s a BioFabUSA/ARMI member company focused on quantifying therapeutic tissue stem cells, received a Notice of Award of its first Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Sponsored by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, the $0.42 million 1 year award recognizes the potential major impact of Asymmetrex’s first-in-kind technology in the stem cell medicine and drug development industries.

Read more here

August 6th - Recently, the FDA Newsroom wrote an article touting the importance of advanced manufacturing and referenced BioFabUSA / ARMI in doing so. Read an excerpt below and the full article available via "read more," below.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has sought to encourage and facilitate the adoption of “advanced manufacturing,” which refers to new and emerging approaches for the production of medical technologies.

Advanced manufacturing approaches are applicable to different medical product areas. For example, process intensification methods, such as continuous manufacturing, can simplify and centralize the production of many essential medicines. Likewise, techniques such as 3D printing can help produce patient-specific medical devices. Furthermore, digital and smart design and manufacturing processes also promise to increase efficiency and reduce uncertainty.

The potential public health value of advanced manufacturing is even greater in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the strain on supply chains and the need for adaptive manufacturing systems to accelerate the production of medical countermeasures

Read more here 

July 17th - The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded $3.4 million in grants to support high-impact projects for COVID-19 pandemic response. ARMI|BioFabUSA is poised to receive $400,000 in funding to develop and disburse a road map for organizations to follow for pandemic response and recovery. The road map will identify and prioritize key needs, including those related to: supply chain issues to enable increased production of PPE, test kits and vaccines; manufacturing production to decrease times for vaccine manufacturing; and rapid delivery of test kits and vaccines to the right places. More than 2,000 manufacturing organizations are slated to benefit from this developed roadmap. To learn more read the press release in its entirety here  

July 3rd - Two University of Virginia Engineers have developed an instrument to aid in the manufacturing of tissue for muscle repair. Their novel research has awarded them a $5000,000 grant from BioFab USA for their research, allowing lost skeletal muscle to be replaced with manufactured tissue derived from a patient’s own muscle stem cells. Read more here