3D human organs printed: do you know these facts?
-3D human organ printing, 3D printing, 3D printing-IT news 3D human organs printed: do you know these facts?

3D printer can print out things like chocolate, shoes, airplane models, this sounds very interesting, and full of mystery. However, many scientists are engaged in a tedious, but research on 3D printing technology is of great significance to humans: they print body parts to save human lives, to change people's lives.

Imagine if we can print as needed in human organs, patients, organ transplant recipients, save a long time to wait. In the United States, currently has 78,837 patients waiting for organ donations. Since January 2014, only 3,407 patients received organ donations. Although 3D printing human organs to make up for the gap, but in this area of technology, we're still in the early stages of development. Plastic toy compared to print, 3D printing human organs is much more complex.

What is a 3D human organ printing?

In fact, a long time ago, researchers had cultivated in the laboratory of human organs, but it was not until the 90 's of the last century, "imprinting" was suddenly aroused people's attention. All this thanks to weikefulisite California Institute for regenerative medicine scientists, they printed d artificial bladder. Earlier this decade, Clemson University engineer tuomasi·Bolan (Thomas Boland) began using ink-jet printers to separate biological "ink", and finally print out 3D objects.

In 2007, the first bio-printing company Organovo was established. This company prints liver tissue samples for drug testing and research. The company hopes to have in the near future to develop a working liver.

3D human organs to do?

Although 3D human organ printing there is a big difference between print and plastic statues, but their printing process is very similar: two types of printers including a cartridge and nozzles, they can spew "ink" (bio-ink), and is a layer-by-layer ink jet. However, there is an obvious difference between the two:

-We all know that most organs look like, however you want to print out a single individual organs, scientists need CT scans of patients. Then, they require computer software to analyze the results, and set up a "blueprint", this blueprint need to in each layer of tissue, the cells of the details.

Bio-printer is not used is PVC plastic or metal, but human cells, and adhesives (adhesive is used to bring together all the tissues and cells). In addition to using real cells in addition to bio-printers can also use stem cells, bio-engineering materials and humans do not exclude other alternatives. For example, in 2012, an 83-year-old woman had successfully transplanted a titanium jaw 3D printing. In 2013, the United States a head transplant, 3D printing plastic skulls.

-Once the sample was printed, it needs to be placed in an incubator, so that cells are capable of "fusion", able to live in harmony with each other, as the real ones.

The last point is the real challenge for 3D human organs printed today, it is also the cause of this technology cannot be expanded globally.

How to overcome the problem?

Weikefulisite competent andongni·Atala of the California Institute for regenerative medicine (Anthony Atala) that this is a very complex problem, one of the main challenges is finding can be used to form tissues from "materials", and then allow it to grow in vitro. In addition, we cannot-d print organs human body, enabling it to tightly bonded together for a long time. Real organ in the body is a very complex, printed cells can come together, but that doesn't mean they will be able to work.

Cornell University bio-engineer hudi·lipusen (Hod Lipson), what kind of software is not strong enough to establish a very detailed model, available to researchers before the printed 3D organ as a reference.

In addition, the scientists found that vascular structures is not a simple matter. Organs need arteries, veins and capillaries to promote circulation and nutrient transport. However, the blood vessels are very long, very thin, tubular, this greatly increases the difficulty of printing.

However, even so, there are researchers who have tried this: in May, Brigham researchers used an agarose molecules as a vascular template.

3D printing organs of the future

To date, in terms of 3D printing organs, there have been many "half success." We say "half-success", because most of them do not work, or simply live only a few days.

For example, Organovo prints out a normal to use miniature human livers, but it survived for only 40 days. Researchers at the University of Louisville in April this year, successfully print out the heart valves and veins, they hope in the future to be able to use a patient's cells to print out a normally beating heart.

Lipson said about 90% patients waiting for an organ transplant are now looking for the liver. Lipson himself is looking for 3D printing kidney ... He had on the TED stage shows a 3D printed model (incorrectly). In addition, he also described the future potential of this technology.

He said that the future desktop scanner scans and after assessing the patient's wound, it can be printed directly in the patient's wound tissue. But before that, we need will print organs and tissue in the lab for cultivating, by referring to the accuracy of sample to be transplanted into a patient.