Prineeta Kulkarni

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Print-a-Part: How 3D Printing is transforming Medical Device Manufacturing
Prineeta Kulkarni
Last modified on November 13, 2018 at 8:17 pm
Win-Win Innovation Fueled by the trend of precision medicine, the use of new technologies such as additive manufacturing is seeing an uptick. Additive manufacturing, specifically 3D printing, allows rapid and flexible manufacturing of medical devices that are customized to patient [...]

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On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Three-dimensional bioprinting and the future of organ transplants :

Fascinating post on the leaps made in this area! I am curious on Dave’s point regarding the cost advantage of 3D printing organs versus growing them in the lab in the conventional way. Does 3D printing lead to more standardized organ production or organs that perform more similarly in function? I feel this may be difficult given how cells can be similar but never identical. I am also curious as to the cost efficiency of using this approach.

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Defense Distributed: Is There a Future for Gun-control? :

Very thought-provoking article with a nuanced and balanced take on the philosophical questions being raised on both sides of the fence. Agree with AT’s comment on the solutions that can be layered into the business model to reduce misuse, but all of these involve some aspect of external control and thus seem incompatible with Defense Distributed’s mission of democratizing access to firearms as a fundamental right. This article, to me, also recalls the debate around how scientists and technologists can balance the free pursuit of ideas with cognizance of the destructive fallout of some of these advancements. While 3D printing does not trace its development to a destructive intent and has limited potential to inflict damage on a wide scale, the increasing pace of technological advancement and its rapid diffusion into daily usage raises questions of the role that governments should play in anticipating and pre-empting such applications. A broader question is whether even governments can unilaterally self-legitimize their decisions to use technology for destructive applications, for instance, use of drone technology in strikes that hit civilian populations, and the global approach needed to ensure that future technological advances are used for good rather than harm.

User deleted this comment on November 16, 2018
On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Defense Distributed: Is There a Future for Gun-control? :

Very thought-provoking article with a nuanced and balanced take on the philosophical questions being raised on both sides of the fence. Agree with AT’s comment on the solutions that can be layered into the business model to reduce misuse, but all of these involve some aspect of external control and thus seem incompatible with Defense Distributed’s mission of democratizing access to firearms as a fundamental right. This article, to me, also recalls the debate around how scientists and technologists can balance the free pursuit of ideas with cognizance of the destructive fallout of some of these advancements. While 3D printing does not trace its development to a destructive intent and has limited potential to inflict damage on a wide scale, the increasing pace of technological advancement and its rapid diffusion into daily usage raises questions of the role that governments should play in anticipating and pre-empting such applications. Even more of an open question is whether governments can unilaterally confer upon themselves a legitimate right to use technology for destructive applications, for instance, use of drone technology in strikes that routinely hit civilian populations.

User deleted this comment on November 16, 2018
On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Defense Distributed: Is There a Future for Gun-control? :

Very thought-provoking article with a nuanced and balanced take on the philosophical questions being raised on both sides of the fence. Agree with AT’s comment on the solutions that can be layered into the business model to reduce misuse, but all of these involve some aspect of external control and thus seem incompatible with Defense Distributed’s mission of democratizing access to firearms as a fundamental right. This article, to me, also recalls the debate around how scientists and technologists can balance the free pursuit of ideas while being cognizant of the destructive fallout of some of these advancements. While 3D printing does not trace its development to a destructive intent and has limited potential to inflict damage on a wide scale, the increasing pace of technological advancement and its rapid diffusion into daily usage raises questions of the role that governments should play in anticipating and pre-empting such applications. Even more of an open question is whether governments can unilaterally confer upon themselves a legitimate right to use technology for destructive applications, for instance, use of drone technology in strikes that routinely hit civilian populations.

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Fighting Organizational Inertia in Aerospace :

This was a great example of additive manufacturing being used to inspire a ground-up re-design effort, as opposed to substitution-focused applications! Rolls Royce seems to have a comprehensive plan to position itself for capturing the additive manufacturing opportunity. While you make a nuanced point about how Rolls Royce should leverage this opportunity in light of the legacy fleet factor, I am not clear how additive manufacturing could be used in this scenario. Given your insights into how additively-manufacturing parts show different properties and behaviour compared to conventionally-manufactured parts, I am curious about the feasibility of incorporating such components into existing legacy engines. How do you look at the impact of adding such components on a piecemeal basis and integrating them into a legacy aircraft engine? How would Rolls Royce assure safety and performance in such mixed systems, and convince its airline customers to take on this risk in a heavily regulated industry that has high costs associated with system failure?

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Using Open Innovation to Fight the Opioid Epidemic :

This was a great read! It is exciting to see the lead role being taken by government agencies to drive innovative solutions for the opioid crisis. While I agree that the private sector needs to be incentivized to tackle this challenge, the initial work of highlighting viable business opportunities within the solutions space of the crisis will have to be taken up by the government. I see a parallel here to the drug development process, where exploratory research takes place in publicly-funded institutions, and the private sector steps in when the research evolves into a monetizable opportunity. Until this model of innovation for public goods remains the norm, the government will have to play an active role in crowd-sourcing innovative solutions and nurturing them till a viable business case can be made out that will attract private participation.

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Can the maker of Post-it notes solve healthcare pricing? :

I really enjoyed this read and learning about 3M’s initiative to tackle over-spending within the US healthcare system. This initiative, if broadly adopted, could play a transformative role in rationalizing the provision of healthcare services, which has seemed an intractable problem so far. I would be curious to see how providers respond to this solution. How much weightage should a provider give to suggestions made by the 3M system? How would this system adjust for complications or patient-specific idiosyncrasies that, if overlooked, could harm patient outcomes? Providers will want to retain autonomy over clinical decisions, and knowing this, how can providers be held to task for prescribing procedures that seem unnecessary from the 3M model’s perspective? In the absence of any enforcement mechanism, the new system will likely not have the desired impact on provider decision-making. Finally, how do we think of liability-sharing for patient outcomes, in a world where providers receive nudges from machine-learning models and may have to be incentivized to follow such nudges?

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Process Development Disruption in the Oil & Gas industry: Open Innovation to Drive Value in UK Under-Explored Areas :

Thank you for sharing this fascinating application of Open Innovation in the Oil and Gas sector. I am not convinced that the use of this model by the UK Government is indicative of a larger shift to open innovation by the industry. I do not see any incentives to justify O&G firms contributing to the publicly available data and expect them to primarily be consumers of such data. The UK Government seems to have had a specific set of motivations around lowering barriers to entry, enhancing competitiveness, and increasing oil production from its offshore deposits. I would be interested to know the level of exploration in UK offshore fields till date and whether it has significantly lagged exploration efforts by oil companies elsewhere, to understand the justification for this model. On a broader note, the spread of this model to other governments around the world would be a disturbing trend – it echoes Jeff Dean’s comment where governments would take on the financial burden of some of the exploratory costs from companies that already have the resources to do so.

On November 15, 2018, POE commented on Will machine learning help the Commonwealth Bank of Australia avoid the next banking scandal? :

This was an insightful and extremely relevant read! I see clear applications of RegTech in improving compliance and data integrity in pharmaceuticals manufacturing, where data falsification can lead to stiff penalties for companies and severe consequences for patients. Academia (particularly research) and the clinical trials industry are other areas that are also vulnerable to data manipulation and fraudulent practices and could benefit from RegTech solutions. While using machine learning for risk management seems like a potential source of competitive advantage for a banks, you make a sobering comment on CBA’s priorities – and so I think that adoption will depend on whether the risk reduction is tangible enough to change customer behavior around bank selection. With sufficient traction on customer and regulator demand for adoption, I see this becoming the industry standard in the long run, although early adopters could still enjoy a reputational halo for pioneering such risk management interventions.