Topic: “Additive Manufacturing and Metals in Biomedical Applications”
Biography: Prof. Dr. Igor Drstvensek began his career at the Slovenian company Libela Celje, where he introduced CAD/CAM into everyday working life in the early 1990s. After completing his Master's degree at the University of Maribor, he worked as a visiting scientist at the University of Erlangen and the Vienna University of Technology. After completing his doctorate, he began his academic career at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maribor, where he works as a lecturer in production technologies and maintenance. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien (Austria), at MCI Innsbruck (Austria) and at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where he was appointed honorary professor in 2008. His research work over the last 15 years has been dedicated to additive manufacturing and in particular to medical applications of additive manufacturing.
He is the head of the additive manufacturing laboratory at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maribor. In 2006, he initiated the first implant production using additive manufacturing technologies in Slovenia, and in the last 17 years he has carried out 60 projects for the production of cranial and maxillofacial implants. From 2016 to 2019, he carried out the development and clinical trial of a patient-specific revision acetabular cup manufactured using selective laser melting technology. He is the author of 6 national patents and 5 international patent applications. In September 2017, he was honoured with the Fujian Honorary Citizenship, which is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to the economic and social development of Fujian Province (China). His research work has been published in 545 bibliographic units, including 69 scientific papers, 24 technical papers, 154 conference papers and 9 books. In the past 10 years, his work has been cited 933 times.