A decade ago 3D printing was something new to play with. But now it has come to the level of creating human tissues using the technology of 3D printing. This shows the rapid growth of technology and innovation. This process of creating human tissues using 3D printers is known as Bio Printing. This technology could actually save billions of money while boosting the health infrastructure of economically poor countries by allowing them to experience affordable health care provision by bringing down the health related costs drastically.
From a technological perspective, this is a great advancement, but we should understand how practical this method of bio printing is.
3D printed human tissue is designed and created using a very advanced set of cartridges and extracted cells, sourced from the patient’s biopsies with regard to the examination of cancer cells or stem cells. They are being allowed to grow using standard techniques and nurtured in a medium growth dish allowing them to multiply. Once the cells have grown enough, they are being collected and processed into spheroids or other related shapes and filled into a cartridge to create this so called Bio ink.
After being loaded and processed, the Bio ink is being transferred to the printing machine (bio printer) along with a cartridge of hydrogel which is a kind of synthetic matrix effectively used for building 3D layer of cells. Then the printer produces a layer of water based gel, followed with a load of bio ink cells and so on. They are made naturally to fuse together and build upon the layers.
After this process once the required amounts of layers are printed, the printed tissue is allowed to mature and improve as a structure, during which time the hydrogel is removed automatically. Some researchers experimenting with this technology have used sugar and aqua (water) as a base to support the vascular structure to great victory.
Organovo, a giant in the pharmaceutical industry recently bio printed the first ever 3D liver tissues for laboratory purposes and it was a massive success. This could create 24 liver tissues with the use of a single plate. As per their estimate it would take 10 days to print a liver using the 3D technology, but they are working on it make it to a least possible in order to make things more possible. As mentioned earlier if 3D printing gives favorable results, it would surely be turnaround in the medical industry.
At present, printed tissues and cells are generally used for healthcare research, developing the root cause for diseases to monitor how the tissue or the cell reacts. Based on the result of this, future treatments may be developed. It is very likely that in the future 3D printers will be used to develop simple tissues for implanting most of the human body organs. If approved by the medical authorities around the world this could be used on a daily basis for the betterment of patients.