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Tag: organs

  • 3D Printed Organs May Cause Moral Quandaries In The Future

    One of the most promising uses of 3D printing is the creation of human tissue and organs. Proponents of the technology believe that we may one day be able to grow transplantable organs in the lab bypassing the lengthy donor process. It seems like a win-win situation for everybody, but Gartner thinks somebody will spoil the fun sooner or later.

    In a new report out today, Gartner predicts that bioprinting will mature by 2015 which will increase demand for printed organs. In the following year, it expects the practice of 3D printing organs to spark ethical debates, much like the debates around stem cell research.

    “3D 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,” said Pete Basiliere, research director at Gartner. “These initiatives are well-intentioned, but raise a number of questions that remain unanswered. 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?”

    Despite the debates that may arise around the practice, Gartner expects demand to explode once the technology matures. The firm thinks emerging markets will be especially interested in 3D printed organs as its offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional organ transplants.

    Besides organs, Gartner expects 3D printing to continually challenge the status quo in retail and manufacturing. It predicts that seven of the world’s top 10 multichannel retailers will use 3D printers to fulfill custom orders. It also expects businesses built exclusively on 3D printers to become more common in the next few years.

    “Some retailers are already selling 3D printers to consumers, and as they become more readily available, consumers could use them to ‘manufacture’ their own custom-designed products,” said Miriam Burt, research vice president at Gartner. “We also expect to see 3D copying services and 3D printing bureaus emerge where customers bring 3D models to a retailer or provider and have increasingly high-end parts and designs printed, not just in plastics but in materials including ceramics, stainless steel, and cobalt and titanium alloys.”

    Of course, we can’t have a discussion of 3D printing without the intellectual property hawks claiming that the technology will lead to at least $100 billion in losses annually related to IP theft.

    “The very factors that foster innovation — crowdsourcing, R&D pooling and funding of start-ups — coupled with shorter product life cycles, provide a fertile ground for intellectual property theft using 3D printers,” said Mr. Basiliere. “Already, it’s possible to 3D print many items, including toys, machine and automotive parts, and even weapons.”

    While it’s certainly true that 3D printers can replicate a wide variety of things, it’s hard to believe that the technology will suddenly become a breeding ground for IP theft. The only way that could ever happen is if the manufacturers of the world ignore 3D printing in favor of outdated manufacturing techniques. Toy manufacturers in particular would stand to benefit from using 3D printers as soon as possible to prevent others from making cheap, accurate knockoffs with the technology.

    That being said, it’s easy to agree with Gartner’s conclusion that some knockoff products may end up being dangerous due to lack of quality assurance. In a world where guns can now be 3D printed, people may end up buying defective, and potentially dangerous, weapons from underground vendors.

    Image via TEDMED/YouTube

  • We Could See A 3D Printed Liver By Next Year

    One of the most ambitious uses of 3D printers today is the creation of working organs. Researchers have already come a long way in making organ tissue with 3D printers, but getting it to work is the hard part. One company claims to have overcome this last hurdle.

    In what could become one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of 2014, Organovo claims to have created vascular tissue with a 3D printer. Until now, researchers have only been able to create some of the tissue required to create a functioning liver, but the vascular system, which provides organs with oxygen and nutrients, just couldn’t be created – until now that is.

    So, how did they do it? According to 3ders, the researchers at Organovo combined fibroblasts and endothelial cells to create the vascular networks necessary for a functioning liver. With this breakthrough, the company was able to 3D print a liver that lived for 40 days in a petri dish.

    While this is an amazing step forward in the development of 3D printed organs, it’s still a little too early to throw away that organ donor card. It will take years of further research and trials before 3D printed organs can be used in humans. The good news is that 3D printed organs can be used to advance medicine without going into bodies. Researchers will be able to use these 3D printed organs to test new medications on which would significantly cut down on the cost and time required to bring new medications to market.

    In short, we’re still years away from replacing our body parts with 3D printed versions. That being said, we’re probably only a short year away from researchers achieving something that so far has only been seen in science-fiction – growing functioning organs in a lab.

    Image via organovoinc/YouTube

  • We’re Less Than A Decade Away From A 3D Printed Heart

    We’re Less Than A Decade Away From A 3D Printed Heart

    3D printing and medicine have been best buds as of late with researchers using the technology to print everything from blood vessels to working organs. Now one group of researchers wants to use 3D printers to replicate the heart.

    A team at Kentucky’s Cardiovascular Innovation Institute is making their own 3D printers in the hope that they can be used to print a working human heart within ten years. It’s an incredibly ambitious goal, but one that would have dramatic repercussions throughout medicine. After all, think of the benefits of a heart crafted from a person’s own cells instead of a donor heart that the patient’s body may end up rejecting.

    So, how does one go about 3D printing a heart? It all starts with fat as the process extracts cells from the patient’s fat. The cells are then used in a 3D printer that layers human tissue in the shape of a heart. These cells are held together with a glue that will eventually dissolve as the cells naturally join together to form a working heart.

    The best part about this potential new source of transplantable hearts is the cost. The cost of a printed heart is ballparked around $100,000 and the surgery itself would cost around $150,000. That may seem like a lot, but it’s far cheaper than what a heart transplant currently costs. The patient would also save money on medication as anti-rejection drugs wouldn’t be necessary for a heart made from the patient’s own cells.

    [Image: Courier-Journal]
    [h/t: 3ders]

  • 3D Printed Organs Are Here, And They’re Very Tiny

    Growing organs in a lab is no longer science fiction. Universities have already proven that you can grow tissue or blood vessels with 3D printers. One company has now taken it a step further, however, by combining the two.

    NewScientist reports that Organovo, a San Diego-based medical company, has created a fully functioning human liver via 3D printing. The only catch is that these livers are ridiculously tiny.

    Organovo was able to create its tiny livers by using a 3D printer to layer cell after cell until fully functioning liver tissue was formed. It also used cells from blood vessels to ensure that the tissue was getting all of the nutrients that it needed.

    For now, the tissue can only live for five days. During that time, however, researchers are able to put it through a number of tests. The hope is that this first batch of liver tissue can be used to reduce the amount of time needed to test new drugs as the 3D printed liver reacts to treatment just like a real liver would.

    Of course, the ultimate goal is to create a full-sized human liver. Thousands of people die each year waiting for a transplant. With 3D printed organs, doctors would be able to create a liver from the patient’s own cells so as to ensure perfect compatibility.

    Let’s just hope that the advent of 3D printed organs doesn’t throw us into a dystopian world reminiscent of Repo.

  • This 3D Printer May One Day Print Functioning Organs

    3D printers are making waves in the world of medicine as researchers continue to advance the technology’s ability to create parts of the human body. The latest 3D printer – coming from the University of Iowa’s Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department – is one step closer to printing human organs.

    Much like past 3D bio-printers, the University of Iowa is using the new 3D printer to create working blood vessels. The team seems to have already made great strides towards that goal. Their next goal is to create the insulin creating part of the pancreas so that they can have a chance at curing Diabetes. From there, we may start seeing fully functioning organs coming out of labs.

    Not all of the advancements being made at the University of Iowa apply to medicine though. The engineering team has made a 3D printer with two arms. That’s typically never seen in 3D printers as people can’t figure out a way to keep the arms from hitting each other as they move around the build space. The video doesn’t go into detail over how the team accomplished the feat, but regular 3D printers would benefit greatly from multiple arms printing at once by completing jobs faster, and perhaps with even more detail.

    [h/t: Fabbaloo]

  • “Organ-On-A-Chip” May Put PETA Out Of A Job

    There are people, including those in PETA, who vigorously protest the use of animals in clinical trials. Many scientists understand why the practice is hated and would probably switch to something else if they could. In their mind, it’s more humane to use animals instead of humans when testing new drugs. Like all problems, however, science may have found a solution.

    Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering are currently developing what they call an “organ-on-a-chip.” It’s exactly as it sounds as researchers are now building microchips that behave like human organs. If successful, scientists will be able to run clinical simulations on these simulated organs to determine the effects certain drugs will have on the human body.

    The video below explains the first of these “organs-on-a-chip” with a microchip that mimics the functions of a human lung. It’s lined with real cells so researchers will be able to how new medicines affect these organs as if they belonged to a human.

    Lung on a Chip — Wyss Institute from Wyss Institute on Vimeo.

    The most amazing thing about this breakthrough is when they introduce white blood cells and bacteria into the “lung.” All the cells behave just like they would in a real lung thus proving that these “organs” could one day replace testing on living beings.

    Of course, the law requires that all medicine go through actual human testing as well before being sold. The “organ-on-a-chip” just allows researchers to test new drugs without having to potentially harm animals in the process. If the technology takes off, we’ll only have to start worrying about robotic rights groups protesting the use of silicon in medical testing.

    [h/t: Science Friday]

  • The Amazing History And Future Of Bioprinting [Infographic]

    I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – 3D printers are amazing. The technological wonder that allows us to create 3D objects simply by scanning them into a computer has the potential to revolutionize everything. There’s even been talks of how to apply 3D printing to create sustainable food for countries with low food reserves. The most amazing use of 3D printing, however, comes in the form of printing human organs for transplants.

    While 3D printing seems like its out of sci-fi, the technology has actually been around since 1984 when Charles Hull created the first 3D printer. The cost of the technology, however, has kept it out of the public eye for most of the last 20 years. It was only until recently that universities and even regular Joe-types began to be able to afford the tech.

    Let’s jump to today when 3D printing is now taking off and scientists are using it to make groundbreaking discoveries in the world of science and medicine. This wonderful infographic from the fine folks at Printerinks shows how far 3D printing has come from its humble origins and how scientists are using the tech to grow organs.

    As we learned back when researchers were creating working blood vessels with a 3D printer, the process is as simple as it is complex. It starts with the growth of cells. The 3D printer comes into play when they are used to create a layered structure that’s then layered with cells that attach to the structure and turn it into the organ.

    With our current technology, it’s estimated that it would take 10 days to print a liver. As technology improves, it’s estimated that scientists could print a liver in three hours. That’s great news for the thousands of people who are waiting for a live transplant to save their life.

    The creation of organs through 3D printing has another, less talked about function, as well. If we could test drugs on 3D printed human livers, it would save millions of dollars and years of time that it takes to develop and test new drugs on animals before it’s even considered for human testing.

    As you can see, 3D printing is seriously the most important invention of the 20th century. The only problem is that the technology doesn’t get enough credit for the potential it has. As long as I live, I hope to sing the praises of 3D printing from the rooftops until I need new lungs created through 3D printing to replace my old ones.

    Bioprinting infographic

    Created by Printerinks