A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from August 14 to August 19.

Tuesday, August 14

• Neil Gershenfeld Speaks With RadioNZ (New Zealand), Talks 3D Printing
• TangiBot has a Kickstarter Project for a Much Cheaper MakerBot

Wednesday, August 15

• Printing Nano-Electronics on Everything: Phones, Planes, Fish Tanks

Thursday, August 16

• 3D Printed Meat for Dinner: Peter Thiel Backs Bioprinting Startup

Friday, August 17

• Google Employees Treated to 3D Printed Pasta by Renowned Chef

Shapeways featured some of the smallest, yet detailed, 3D printed designs on their blog.

The very small goods included trains, tanks, robots, Rubik’s cubes, and more.

Check out the whole collection at Shapeways.

Vaccines are a controversial topic today, but there is no doubt they have had a major impact on society by eradicating major diseases in the past. Scientists are continuing to research ways to make vaccines more effective.

North Carolina-based Liquidia Technologies is innovating on the manufacturing of vaccines. By utilizing 3D printing and nano-technology, Liquidia believes they can mass-produce more effective vaccines at a lower cost.

Applying nanoparticle fabrication techniques to vaccine production could dramatically cut their cost per dose. Joseph DeSimone and his spin out Liquidia, presented their nano-production process for vaccines at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Diego, US, and hope that their work will improve immunisation rates in the developing world.

DeSimone has done a lot of work on the mass production of nanoparticles using nanolithography – materials are moulded and then transferred to films in a streamlined, reel to reel, process. ‘We say we’re harnessing the power of the precision and uniformity of the microelectronics industry for making vaccines and medicines,’ he explains. And because this is a dry moulding technology, with no concerns about partitioning, DeSimone adds, ‘you can access compositions you couldn’t access before’.

Via RSC.

‘We say we’re harnessing the power of the precision and uniformity of the microelectronics industry for making vaccines and medicines,’ DiSimone explains.

Liquidia now has one vaccine in Phase I clinical trials and several others in development.

The video below provides an overview of Liquidia’s PRINT platform.

Vaccines research lab photo by Novartis AG used under Creative Commons License.

A team from the Vienna University of Technology set a new world record this week: 3D printed nano objects in just 4 minutes. Their process, called two-photon lithography, uses a focused laser to harden liquid resin.

Applications? Consider how this process could be used to make micro objects for biomedical research and treatment.

Photo above is a human figure smaller than a grain of sand. Photo below is a detailed cathedral about 50 microns in length.

Read more and see additional photos at Reuters’ World in Nano.