3D printing a future in medicine
By Emily Chen, Data Science and Biochemistry, 2023
Our bodies are made up of complex organs connected by networks of blood vessels. Recreating the complexity of each organ is hard to imagine. But, with the advent of 3D printing, scientists in Texas, Cambridge, and Brazil have proven otherwise.
The idea of artificially grown organs isn’t new. Synthetic skin has been used on burn patients for decades; however, the concept of creating organs more complex than skin is revolutionizing the field of modern medicine. In March 2019, for instance, a 3D-printed kidney was used for the first time in a life-saving surgery in Texas.
Just this winter, in December 2019, scientists in Brazil printed “mini-livers” that can perform the same functions as a natural liver: building proteins, storing vitamins, and secreting bile. Days later, an Israeli research team printed a heart the size of a cherry, fit with the ability to pump blood. At Rice University, in Houston, Texas, scientists discovered that Yellow №5 food dye allows the appropriate vascular networks to mimic the body’s passageways and deliver oxygen to surrounding blood vessels. Volumetric Bio, a biotechnology company, is funding a variety of research projects developing 3D printing technology, creating an open-source project and accelerating progress in the field.
The central idea of these 3D-printed organs is that cells from the patient themselves are used to make them.
In the United States there are currently more than 100,000 individuals waiting for life-saving organ transplants. Additionally, the patients who do undergo an organ transplant face a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs. If we only rely on organ donors, this constant demand for transplants will never fade. Every day in the United States, 13 people die waiting for a kidney transplant, and with this advancing technology, these deaths have greater potential to be avoided. The central idea of these 3D-printed organs is that cells from the patient themselves are used to make them. This decreases the probability of rejection and reduces the need for immunosuppressant drugs, increasing the longevity and quality of life. The progress of developing 3D printing technology is exponential, and a future using life-sized livers and hearts in transplant surgeries is closer than you think.