TY - JOUR
T1 - A Novel Semi‐Automated Pipeline for Optimizing 3D‐Printed Drug Formulations
AU - Abdalla, Youssef
AU - Ferianc, Martin
AU - Alfassam, Haya
AU - Awad, Atheer
AU - Qiao, Ruochen
AU - Rodrigues, Miguel
AU - Orlu, Mine
AU - Basit, Abdul W.
AU - Shorthouse, David
N1 - © 2025 The Author(s). Advanced Intelligent Systems published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
PY - 2025/5/15
Y1 - 2025/5/15
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - automation
KW - autonomous labs
KW - Pharma 4.0
KW - powder bed fusion 3D printing
KW - uncertainty estimations
KW - precision medications
KW - machine learning and artificial intelligence
U2 - 10.1002/aisy.202401112
DO - 10.1002/aisy.202401112
M3 - Article
SN - 2640-4567
SP - 1
EP - 12
JO - Advanced Intelligent Systems
JF - Advanced Intelligent Systems
M1 - 2401112
ER -