3D BIOPRINTING

One of the most common problems in medicine involves organ transplantation. When a patient’s organ fails, that patient needs to be placed on a waiting list to receive an organ transplant. Unfortunately, once the patient receives a transplant, this new organ is not permanent. Eventually, the human body will reject this foreign organ and the patient will once again need an organ transplant. This infinite loop will soon be a thing of the past thanks to the technology available to produce artificial organs.

ARTIFICIAL ORGANS

Artificial organs are bioengineered to be implanted in humans to replace a failed organ and duplicate organ function. What makes artificial organs unique is that they can be produced through a sample of muscle tissue from the organ that’s being replicated. This is where 3D bioprinting comes into play.

3D PRINTERS

A 3D printer is able to build any object by breaking the object into many small pieces. Then, from these small pieces, the printer will build the object from the ground up layer by layer. I’m going to break down these building blocks in relation to organs step by step.

Step 1: Imaging

The first phase begins with getting an image of the organ you’re trying to print. This is done through a CAT scan, MRI, or X-RAY.

Step 2: Material Selection

In this phase, the artificial organ can either be created through synthetic material or natural polymers, such as sample tissue from the organ you’re replicating.

Step 3: Bioprinting and Application

Now that there’s a small base of material for the printer to work with, the 3D printer can get to work building the artificial organ. Microextrusion involves printing bio-ink made from living cells to support the cells in the sample tissue from an organ. This is where the magic of the 3D printer comes in! Starting off from a small piece represented by the cells of an organ tissue sample, layer by layer, the sample gets built upon through the bio-ink injection. As the sample begins to get more defined, the cells in the bio-ink mimic the organic human heart cells.

HOW BIOPRINTING CAN MAKE TRANSPLANTS PERMANENT

As described earlier, the problem with organ transplants is that they don’t last forever, but with 3D bioprinting, this problem can be solved sooner rather than later. Since you can use tissues and cells from your body to build a bioengineered organ, once that organ gets transferred into your body, the organ will not be recognized as a foreign object. Our immune system causes the human body to immediately attack foreign, organic molecules as it views them as harmful to the body.

BIOPRINTING VS MECHANIZED SOLUTIONS

Since bioprinting is more organic than other implantable mechanized devices such as a pacemaker, the chances of defects are significantly lower. Synthetic fixes to organ problems can arguably be an even more short term solution than organ transplants.

Conclusion

The future of organ transplantation has a bright future through the power of 3D bioprinting. Before we know it, artificial organs will be realized as the permanent cure to all organ diseases.