It’s also a matter of who. The race to be the first to 3D print a transplantable human organ is an intense one, and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center may have just pulled into the lead. Regenerative medicine researchers at the North Carolina hospital have announced that they have printed ear, bone and muscle structures and successfully implanted them into animals. The structures, after being implanted, matured into functional tissue and sprouted new systems of blood vessels, and their strength and size mean that they could feasibly be implanted into humans in the future.
“We make ears the size of baby ears. We make jawbones the size of human jawbones,” said Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM). “We are printing all kinds of things.”
Dr. Atala has long been a major player in the field of regenerative medicine. In 2006 his lab made history by growing and implanting a bladder into a human patient – the first time such a feat had ever been accomplished. He and his team have been developing the Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP) over the past decade. The system involves a custom-designed 3D printer that utilzes a water-based ink optimized to promote the health and growth of encapsulated cells, which are printed in alternating layers with biodegradable plastic micro-channels that act as passages for nutrients. Unlike other bioprinting methods, ITOP prints the cells and the scaffolds simultaneously, according to Dr. Atala.
“This novel tissue and organ printer is an important advance in our quest to make replacement tissue for patients,” he said. “It can fabricate stable, human-scale tissue of any shape. With further development, this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation.”
We’re still years away from that, but it’s been five months since 3D printed bone fragments were implanted into rats, and the tissue is still thriving inside the rodents’ bodies. One of the biggest challenges in bioprinting so far has been getting printed tissue to survive long enough to form blood vessels and nerves and otherwise fully integrate with the body in which it is implanted, so this study is incredibly promising. You can access the study here. Discuss these new advances in the 3D Printed Tissue forum over at 3DPB.com.
[Images: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine]