Full-color 3D printing has been used for several years, but in most cases it is used in design and engineering communication. Professionals in these fields show their ideas through color models to help them evaluate and modify the final product. This has also made architects, product designers, filmmakers and shoe manufacturers embrace this technology. . But if your focus is not to build some physical things, but to build those unknown things to find the inner principle of a virus and cure the disease, whether full-color 3D printing can support the virus vaccine What about R&D?
 
　　 The main researcher and faculty of the Bartley Center for Mathematical Medicine, Dr. William C. Ray, is trying to find a cure for the virus at the National Children’s Hospital Research Institute.
 
　　 Dr. Ray is studying Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), this virus mainly causes lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children all over the world. It is estimated that there are 64 million cases of RSV virus worldwide and 160,000 deaths each year. For children under 1 year old, RSV is the main cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Every year between 75,000 and 125,000 children are admitted to hospital because of RSV infection, and most children are less than 6 months old. It is estimated that more than 8.5 million adults (including those over 65) are also infected every year. In the United States and Europe, approximately 900,000 people are hospitalized each year due to RSV infection. If hospitalization, absenteeism, and mortality are taken into account, RSV causes billions of dollars in losses every year. But there is no approved vaccine to prevent RSV virus.
 
　　 Dr. Ray and his researchers are facing a huge problem. No one knows how the RSV virus actually works. Regarding viruses, one thing has become apparent. A key part of the RSV life cycle involves a molecular machine (F gene), which is used to combine the viral envelope with the targeted cell membrane. This causes a virus payload to enter the cell. If the transmission system of the molecular machine is blocked, the infection can be stopped, but because the transmission system of the molecular machine cannot be located (that is, we don't know how it works), past attempts to develop a vaccine have failed.
 
　　 In order to determine the true color of this molecular machine, Dr. Ray intends to use 3D printing to study the F gene. Using computer graphics as a reference, Dr.Ray knows that the challenge of RSV virus cannot be overcome if relying on two-dimensional pictures, but he believes that the 3D color printed virus display can help his research. Therefore, when his R&D center realized that it needed funds to invest in new technologies to support his research project, Dr. Ray seized an opportunity to get the full-color printer ProJet? x60 3D printer from 3D Systems.
 
　　 William and his team, including virologist Mark Peeples, William's wife and long-term collaborator Joan Ray, used the tools of computer graphics and computational physics to make RSV models. Then they printed a 3D model of the F gene so they could hold it in their hands and directly see the lifelike molecular machines. This helped them see enough details about RSV to confirm how it works and how it can not work. According to Wiilliam, this three-dimensional model provides researchers with very important information. Even with the previous stereoscopic 3D monitors and professional graphics cards, they cannot be compared with full-color 3D models.
 
　　 Although Dr. Ray emphasized that there is still some way to go for the cure of RSV, he said that the rapid printing of color 3D models will allow RSV research to continue to develop and stimulate new ideas about how RSV works.
 
　　 This understanding is not in a vacuum. Researchers already have another tool to help them independently understand and resolve pathogens and threats harmful to our health. Full-color 3D printers cost between ,000 and 4,000, but for our health and modern medical knowledge, this investment is worthwhile. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a full-color 3D model is invaluable.