3D-Printed Focused Ultrasound Transducer Makes It Easier Than Ever to Break the Blood-Brain Barrier

A research team at the Washington University in St. Louis has developed a focused ultrasound transducer, which can be quickly 3D-printed at a low cost — and has released the STL files on GitHub for interested parties to explore.

Using focused ultrasound (FUS) transducers in combination with microbubbles to open up and traverse the blood-brain barrier is proving a popular approach for everything from non-invasive diagnostics to drug delivery for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The equipment needed, however, is expensive — and its size precludes its use in small animal research.

The device designed by Hong Chen, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, aims to solve both problems: It's 3D-printable at a cost of around $80, and it's been proven to be able to focus precisely on something as small as the brain of a mouse when used in combination with an off-the-shelf stereotactic frame.

"We expect this device could be manufactured by research groups without ultrasound background," claims Chen, "and used in various applications in pre-clinical research with minimal training needed."

"We showed that under the same pressure level, a higher-frequency FUS transducer achieved a small drug delivery volume, improving the spatial precision of BBB opening compared with what has been achieved with lower-frequency transducers."

The transducer design has been published to GitHub under an unspecified license, while the paper detailing its creation and use has been published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering under closed-access terms.