Sound-based liquid printing could lead to new designer drugs

Despite the seeming violence, the system (known as “acoustophoretic” printing) is safe to use with living biological material as the soundwaves don’t propagate through the droplet. You could print living cells if you wanted.

It’s still early days for the project, but there’s a lot of potential. Harvard sees this as most useful for the pharmaceutical world, where it could lead to drugs (including biopharmaceuticals) that weren’t possible before. However, it could also have uses in shaping new conductive and optical materials, or even everyday purposes like new cosmetics and food. Substances that were once difficult to include in tiny quantities could eventually make frequent appearances in everything from medicine to hot sauce.