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3D PRINTED BODY PARTS
Organ matches can be hard to come by. Patients typically wait for transplants for months, even years, sometimes dying before receiving them. But now there are companies combating the life-threatening organ shortage with 3D printing.
The process is called "Bioprinting" and it uses human tissue cells as “ink”. It actually isn't a new idea. 3D printers can already make human skin and even retinas. But the method has been limited to small, thin tissues that lack blood vessels. New 3D printing technologies could soon change that.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is creating artificial ears.
A hydrogel scaffold is printed and then covered in skin and cartilage cells. These cells propagate, forming an ear-like structure. The original scaffold biodegrades, leaving the newly formed ear behind. By using the patient’s own cells, the organ has less chance of rejection once transplanted.
United Therapeutics in New Hampshire is using a similar method to create lungs. A collagen infrastructure is 3D printed and then impregnated with human cells to animate it. The process, called "recellularization" is still in its early stages and not without challenges. The more complex an organ, the more difficult the task.
Organs may someday be manufactured in large numbers, not only solving the organ shortage, but also reshaping our life spans.
Imagine getting a new heart and lungs when your original ones give out. The future possibilities are exciting, though much further research and testing are still needed.
While printing a 3D brain is a long way off, Sharon Presnell—chief scientist of Organovo whose company is 3D printing thin sheets of liver—says, “We all think it’s going to be possible at some point in the future. Where we differ, is on how long it will take.”
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