Mosquito Proboscis Wins Ig Nobel for High-Resolution 3D Printing

A mosquito's stinger becomes the world's smallest 3D printer nozzle

Researchers from McGill and Drexel Universities have won the 2026 Ig Nobel Technology Prize for repurposing mosquito proboscises as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles. The process, which the team calls "necroprinting," uses the dead insect's feeding tube to extrude lines finer than a human hair. Conventional 3D printing tips capable of sub-hairline resolution are expensive. The biological nozzles cost about $0.80 each.

The team demonstrated prints with feature sizes between 18 and 28 micrometers. That range is small enough to produce intricate tissue scaffolds, microfluidic devices, and drug-screening platforms. Standard extrusion systems struggle at those scales because their metal or sapphire tips lack the internal geometry of a mosquito's proboscis. The insect's feeding tube combines extreme thinness with structural strength, two properties that are difficult to engineer together in synthetic materials.

The winning team included McGill graduate student Justin Puma, Zhen Yang, Evan Johnston, Zixin Zhang, Xiaoyi Lan, Lingzhi Zhang, Hongyu Hou, Zixin He, Ali Afify, Megan Creighton, and Jianyu Li, alongside Changhong Cao. Cao, an assistant professor at McGill and Canada Research Chair in Small-Scale Materials and Manufacturing, noted that biological nozzles are biodegradable, meaning they can be replaced after each print without generating persistent waste.

Why this matters beyond the prize

The research addresses a real bottleneck in microfabrication. High-precision tips from commercial suppliers can cost tens or hundreds of dollars each, and they still cannot match the fineness of a mosquito's natural stylet. If the team can refine the mounting and alignment process, biological nozzles could lower the cost of entry for labs working on tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and micro-optics.

The work builds on a broader field sometimes called "necrobotics," in which scientists adapt animal body parts to mechanical tasks. A 2023 Ig Nobel went to researchers who built spider-leg micro-grippers. This year's prize shifts the focus from movement to material deposition, showing that dead biological structures can serve as precision manufacturing tools rather than just actuators.

The Ig Nobel context

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor research that "first makes people laugh and then makes them think." Established in 1991, the ceremony has become an annual celebration of science that sounds absurd until you read the paper. The mosquito nozzle research fits that pattern perfectly: the idea of using a dead bug to print tiny structures seems like a gimmick until you look at the resolution numbers.

This year's ceremony moves to Zurich, Switzerland, after 35 years in Boston. Organizers cited safety concerns for international travelers. The mosquito nozzle team will share the stage with winners studying splash-free urinal design, buried cotton underwear decomposition, and the aerodynamics of a healthy nose-blow. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds.

The full research paper was published in Science Advances. Whether necroprinting becomes a mainstream microfabrication technique remains to be seen, but the Ig Nobel spotlight should at least get more engineers thinking about biology as a source of manufacturing solutions.