In the United States, a surgeon has successfully transplanted an ear implant designed from human cells! It is the company 3DBio Therapeutics which is at the origin of the manufacture of this implant for a young woman of 20 years. She had microtia in her right ear, a congenital anomaly that prevents the development of the outer ear. Called AuriNovo, the implant would have been 3D printed from the patient’s collagen hydrogel and cartilage cells. This is the first time that this device has been clinically tested – the trials will have to be done on 11 patients in total in California and Texas.
One of the biggest challenges in the industry bio-impression is this clinical trial phase: it is necessary to guarantee the safety, effectiveness and durability of implants et organs designed by 3D printing. Because if you follow the news, you have certainly heard of bio-printed hearts, 3D printed kidneys, etc. There is still a long way to go before these solutions are implanted in a patient, but this ear transplant is a more than encouraging start!
On the left, the patient before her operation; on the right, the patient 30 days following the operation (photo credits: Dr. Arturo Bonilla, Microtia-Congenital Ear Institute)
Existing treatments to correct microtia consist of designing a prosthesis from cartilage taken from the patient’s ribs – this is a very heavy operation. This prosthesis can also be made from porous polyethylene, a less flexible substance. This is where 3D printing comes into its own. Dr Arturo Bonilla is the surgeon who performed the operation on the young woman: “As a doctor who has treated thousands of children with microtia across the country and around the world, I am inspired by what this technology can mean for microtia patients and their families. This study will allow us to investigate the safety and aesthetic properties of this novel ear reconstruction procedure using the patient’s own cartilage cells.”
The process of creating the 3D printed ear
The first step in manufacturing the implant is a sample of cartilage from the patient’s right ear – the teams specify that half a gram is enough. A scan 3D of the left ear is carried out in parallel. Then, 3DBio Therapeutics isolates the cells responsible for cartilage formation from their sample and cultivates them in a patented nutrient blend, allowing these cells to multiply. These are then mixed with the bio-ink developed by the company; the whole is inserted into the syringe of the bio-printer. In just 10 minutes, a replica of the patient’s ear might be fabricated, layer by layer.
The ear bio-printing process (photo credits: 3DBio Therapeutics)
Once the printing process is complete, the ear is enclosed in a biodegradable protective envelope and sent to Dr. Bonilla. The surgeon then took care of the graft under the patient’s skin. The shape of the ear appears very clearly once the skin is tightened around the implant.
Professor Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the originator of the first 3D bio-printed kidney project, spoke regarding this 3D bio-printed ear: “ This is an important step forward for the field of regenerative medicine. 3D printing aims to provide a number of advantages over artificial hand-made fabrics, including scalability, greater design accuracy and lower costs.. It remains to be seen whether the other planned clinical trials will be as conclusive – we hope so in any case!
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