The Science Behind 3D Bioprinting Human Organs
Today, researchers can already 3D print many organs including skin.
There’s a new technology in town and it has got the medical community excited. It offers the option of creating human organs from scratch, easily replacing damaged ones.
What is this new tech? 3D bioprinting! Similar to other types of additive manufacturing, bioprinting uses a digital file as a blueprint to print an object with cells and biomaterials, creating structures that let living cells within them multiply to form a new organ.
These organs are printed layer by layer just like any 3D printing process. However, rather than using a CAD file, they are created using a digital model with computed tomography and MRI scans. Bioprinting has thus far produced an anti-bacterial tooth, an ovary, a bionic ear, elastic bones, lungs, a heart, an eye and perhaps, more impressively, human skin.
Today, bioprinters can even lay down strips of skin on an affected area. Doctors and scientists are already testing bioprinters that can create skin transplants. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have conceived of a way to 3D print living skin that
even has blood vessels. Yes, you read that right: blood vessels!
This is one of the most exceptional and advanced methods of 3D printing. Want to learn more about 3D printing human skin and organs? Watch our video above.
