3D printing has revolutionised the healthcare industry and continues to evolve every day. Dr Tegan Cheng, Biomedical Engineer, Scientist and Group Leader of the Engineering Prototypes & Implants for Children (EPIC) Lab in Kids Research is one of the people leading this revolution. Dr Tegan Cheng is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and the Director of the EPIC Lab in Kids Research at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. 

The EPIC Lab is focused on developing and evaluating innovative interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of children and their families. The lab uses a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together experts from diverse fields such as psychology, medicine, and public health to address complex health issues. 

Looking to understand how 3D printing could make a difference to education, Dr Cheng embarked on a study of her own, which led to the 3D Heart Study. In the past, medical students relied on preserved congenital heart disease examples to study the heart in their paediatric cardiopathology workshops but now, 3D printing has been proven to enhance education outcomes for students. 

Using CT scans of congenital heart disease examples and the 3D printer in the EPIC Lab, Dr Cheng created a 3D model of a heart to compare how students learned with the 3D hearts versus preserved heart samples. 

The 3D hearts are now officially integrated into the second and third-year medical program at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and, for the very first time, are also being offered to students placed in regional hospitals. The program, called Back to Basics and Child and Adolescent Health teaching, involves approximately 600 students every year. 

Traditional research funding ties the researcher to a particular stream of research. However, funding from Hyundai Help for Kids (HH4K) has given them the freedom to pursue areas that show the greatest potential. As a result, staff in the EPIC Lab have collaborated with multiple departments around the Hospital resulting in projects expanding and growing in their impact, while also establishing new ideas for research. These ideas may not always work, but they are able to apply these learnings to future work. All of this has led to increased research grant success and made clinical trials possible. 

Over the years the funds from HH4K have been allocated to a variety of areas including salary costs, the purchase of new equipment and prototyping costs for an Honours student program. HH4K have helped them to facilitate new research collaborations, a laboratory expansion, and the development of new medical devices for children.

Since 2014, HH4K have donated over $1.53million, Gift in Kind through the supply of vehicles and money-can’t-buy experiences for patients and their families. With the help from donors like Hyundai Help for Kids, EPIC Lab can continue to focus on making life better for the children that they treat. Imagine that! 

To learn more about EPIC Lab, please click here to view a wonderful piece that was created by HH4K as part of their generous support.