Imagine for a moment the following approach: What if doctors could simply print a kidney using the patient’s cells, instead of having to find a match and hope that the patient’s body will not reject the transplanted kidney?
At present and worldwide, many people need critical organs like kidneys, hearts and livers that could save their lives. However, due to limited resources, thousands die on the waiting list every year.
Since 2013, the total number of patients requiring a transplant has doubled, while the number of organs of available donors has remained relatively the same.
As an example, recent data from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) showed that the number of patients waiting for a heart transplant in the UK has grown by 162% in the last ten years.
technology and medicine They have gone hand in hand for many years. Steady advances in the pharmaceutical and medical field have saved millions of lives and improved many others and it seems that Bioprinting is going to have a long way to go in the coming years.
Prostheses and artificial organs:
What is bioprinting of organs or prosthetics?
Organ bioprinting is the use of technology 3D printing technology to assemble multiple cell types, growth factors, and biomaterials layer by layer to produce bioartificial organs that perfectly mimic real organs aesthetically and functionally.
As far as the health sector is concerned, these innovative printers can be used to create implants and even dentures. 3D printed prosthetics are becoming increasingly popular as they are completely custom made, with digital functionalities that allow them to match an individual’s features to the millimeter.
A mini 3D bioprinted heart
To start the process of bioimpresion of an organ, and using as an example the achievement of getting to print a small heart, the research team from Boston University created it using a combination of human stem cell-derived heart cells and microscale 3D printed acrylic parts.
It can beat on its own, just like a human heart, thanks to its living tissue and, as they say, it will serve them for future research on the functioning of the heart in the human body, especially in embryos.
“This is an important advance for the field of medicine regenerative. 3D printing is intended to offer a number of advantages over hand-made engineered fabrics, such as scaling, greater design precision, and lower costs.”explains Professor Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
3D printing to also improve pre-surgery
It should be noted that everything is not focused on generating new organs or prostheses and the use of 3D printing for pre-surgical planning is also gaining momentum. Using a realistic replica of a patient’s anatomy allows surgeons to attempt procedures that they previously would not have been able to perform.
The ability to plan complex surgery and train prior to the procedure using 3D printed models has the potential to not only increase success rates, but also reduce time in the operating room and recovery time and who knows what? to new techniques.
For now scientists have been able to create blood vessels, synthetic ovaries, and even a pancreas. These artificial organs are then grown inside the patient’s body to replace the defective original. The ability to supply artificial organs that are not rejected by the body’s immune system could be revolutionary, saving millions of patients who depend on life-saving transplants every year.
At the moment, the biggest challenge is getting the organs to work the way they should. Despite the enormous amount of progress being made in this field, most researchers are conservative with their estimate of the number of years remaining before fully functioning 3D-printed organs can be implanted in humans.