Artificial hip joints, made-to-measure heart valves or precision-fit blood vessels: implants – particularly those based on scaffolds, i.e. 3D-printed framework structures – are playing an increasingly significant role in regenerative and personalized medicine. It is important for the scaffolds to be readily accepted by the body’s cells and for there to be no rejection reactions. Pre-treatment with plasma can ensure the prerequisites for this. In the High-Performance Center Medical and Pharmaceutical Engineering, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST have succeeded in integrating a plasma source into a 3D printer, thereby enabling the surface to be modified. The aim is to treat the scaffolds with plasma during the actual printing process in order to produce the desired properties.