The emerging process of 3-D printing, which
uses computer-created digital models to create
real-world objects, has produced everything from
toys to jewelry to food.
Soon, however, 3-D printers may be spitting out
something far more complex, and controversial:
human organs.
For years now, medical researchers have been
reproducing human cells in laboratories by hand
to create blood vessels, urine tubes, skin tissue
and other living body parts. But engineering full
organs, with their complicated cell structures, is
much more difficult.
Enter 3-D printers, which because of their precise
process can reproduce the vascular systems
required to make organs viable. Scientists are
already using the machines to print tiny strips of
organ tissue. And while printing whole human
organs for surgical transplants is still years
away, the technology is rapidly developing.
"The mechanical process isn't all that
complicated. The tricky part is the materials,
which are biological in nature," said Mike Titsch,
editor-in-chief of 3D Printer World, which covers
the industry. "It isn't like 3-D printing plastic or
metal. Plastic doesn't die if you leave it sitting
on an open-air shelf at room temperature for too
long."
The idea of printing a human kidney or liver in a
lab may seem incomprehensible, even creepy.
But to many scientists in the field, bioprinting
holds great promise. Authentic printed organs
could be used for drug or vaccine testing, freeing
researchers from less accurate methods such as
tests on animals or on synthetic models.
Then there's the hope that 3-D printers could
someday produce much-needed organs for
transplants. Americans are living longer, and as
we get deeper into old age our organs are failing
more. Some 18 people die in the United States
each day waiting in vain for transplants because
of a shortage of donated organs -- a problem
that Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest
Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a pioneer
in bioprinting, calls "a major health crisis."
An 'exciting new area of medicine'
Bioprinting works like this: Scientists harvest
human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then
allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The
resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed
into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to
arrange different cell types, along with other
materials, into a precise three-dimensional
shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the
body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with
existing tissues.
The process already is seeing some success.
Last year a 2-year-old girl in Illinois, born
without a trachea, received a windpipe built with
her own stem cells. The U.S. government has
funded a university-led "body on a chip" project
that prints tissue samples that mimic the
functions of the heart, liver, lungs and other
organs. The samples are placed on a microchip
and connected with a blood substitute to keep
the cells alive, allowing doctors to test specific
A 3-D printer at Cornell University produces an
artificial ear.
Organovo's NovoGen MMX bioprinter is small
enough to fit into a cabinet.
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The emerging process of 3-D printing, which
uses computer-created digital models to create
real-world objects, has produced everything from
toys to jewelry to food.
Soon, however, 3-D printers may be spitting out
something far more complex, and controversial:
human organs.
For years now, medical researchers have been
reproducing human cells in laboratories by hand
to create blood vessels, urine tubes, skin tissue
and other living body parts. But engineering full
organs, with their complicated cell structures, is
much more difficult.
Enter 3-D printers, which because of their precise
process can reproduce the vascular systems
required to make organs viable. Scientists are
already using the machines to print tiny strips of
organ tissue. And while printing whole human
organs for surgical transplants is still years
away, the technology is rapidly developing.
"The mechanical process isn't all that
complicated. The tricky part is the materials,
which are biological in nature," said Mike Titsch,
editor-in-chief of 3D Printer World, which covers
the industry. "It isn't like 3-D printing plastic or
metal. Plastic doesn't die if you leave it sitting
on an open-air shelf at room temperature for too
long."
The idea of printing a human kidney or liver in a
lab may seem incomprehensible, even creepy.
But to many scientists in the field, bioprinting
holds great promise. Authentic printed organs
could be used for drug or vaccine testing, freeing
researchers from less accurate methods such as
tests on animals or on synthetic models.
Then there's the hope that 3-D printers could
someday produce much-needed organs for
transplants. Americans are living longer, and as
we get deeper into old age our organs are failing
more. Some 18 people die in the United States
each day waiting in vain for transplants because
of a shortage of donated organs -- a problem
that Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest
Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a pioneer
in bioprinting, calls "a major health crisis."
An 'exciting new area of medicine'
Bioprinting works like this: Scientists harvest
human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then
allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The
resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed
into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to
arrange different cell types, along with other
materials, into a precise three-dimensional
shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the
body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with
existing tissues.
The process already is seeing some success.
Last year a 2-year-old girl in Illinois, born
without a trachea, received a windpipe built with
her own stem cells. The U.S. government has
funded a university-led "body on a chip" project
that prints tissue samples that mimic the
functions of the heart, liver, lungs and other
organs. The samples are placed on a microchip
and connected with a blood substitute to keep
the cells alive, allowing doctors to test specific
treatments and monitor their effectiveness.
"This is an exciting new area of medicine. It has
the potential for being a very important
breakthrough," said Dr. Jorge Rakela, a
gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix
and a member of the American Liver
Foundation's medical advisory committee.
"Three-D printing allows you to be closer to
what is happening in real life, where you have
multiple layers of cells," he said. With current 2-
D models, "if you grow more than one or two
layers, the cells at the bottom suffocate from
lack of oxygen."
To accelerate the development of bioprinted
organs, a Virginia foundation that supports
regenerative medicine research announced in
December it will award a $1 million prize for the
first organization to print a fully functioning liver.
One early contender for the prize is Organovo, a
California start-up that has been a leader in
bioprinting human body parts for commercial
purposes. Using cells from donated tissue or
stem cells, Organovo is developing what it hopes
will be authentic models of human organs,
primarily livers, for drug testing.
The company has printed strips of human liver
tissue in its labs, although they are still very
small: four by four by one millimeter, or about
one-fourth the size of a dime. Each strip takes
about 45 minutes to print, and it takes another
two days for the cells to grow and mature, said
Organovo CEO Keith Murphy. The models can
then survive for about 40 days.
Organovo has also built models of human
kidneys, bone, cartilage, muscle, blood vessels
and lung tissue, he said.
"Basically what it allows you to do is build tissue
the way you assemble something with Legos,"
Murphy said. "So you can put the right cells in
the right places. You can't just pour them into a
mold."
Ethical concerns
Not everyone is comfortable with this bold new
future of lab-built body parts, however.
A research director at Gartner Inc., the
information-technology research and advisory
firm, believes 3-D bioprinting is advancing so
quickly that it will spark a major ethical debate
by 2016.
"Three-D bioprinting facilities with the ability to
print human organs and tissue will advance far
faster than general understanding and
acceptance of the ramifications of this
technology," Pete Basiliere said in a recent
report .
"These initiatives are well-intentioned, but raise
a number of questions that remain unanswered,"
Basiliere added. "What happens when complex
'enhanced' organs involving nonhuman cells are
made? Who will control the ability to produce
them? Who will ensure the quality of the
resulting organs?"
Bioprinted organs are also likely to be expensive,
which could put them out of reach of all but the
wealthiest patients.
Murphy said Organovo only uses human cells in
creating tissues, and doesn't see any ethical
problems with what his company is doing.
"People used to worry about doing research on
cadavers ... and that dissipated very quickly," he
said. "We don't think there's any controversy if
you're producing good data and helping people
with health conditions."
Most experts, including Wake Forest's Atala,
don't think we'll see complex 3-D-printed
organs, suitable for transplants, for years if not
decades. Instead, they believe the next step will
be printing strips of tissue, or patches, that
could be used to repair livers and other damaged
organs.
"We are very eager to put pieces of tissue to
work for surgical transplants," said Organovo's
Murphy, who hopes his company will be ready to
begin clinical trials within five years.
Of course, any use of 3-D-printed tissue in
surgical procedures would require approval by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That
review process could take up to a decade.
By then, the notion of a surgeon putting a 3-D-
printed kidney into a patient may not seem so
bizarre. Then again, this swiftly evolving
technology may create new moral conundrums.
"The ethical questions are bound to be the same
concerns we have seen in the past. Many major
medical breakthroughs have suffered moral
resistance, from organ transplants to stem cells,"
said Titsch of 3D Printer World.
"Will only the rich be able to afford it? Are we
playing God? In the end, saving lives tends to
trump all objections."

It is no news na

Wow, elysium in 3d,space booked

Meanwhile
.
. Working on my rap album