3D printed organs – Impact Lab

3D Printer, Biotech, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

New video shows 3D printed lung “breathing”

May 16, 2019

First Breaths

Scientists just took a major step forward towards 3D printed organs — with a new lung-like system full of air sacs can expand and contract, filling the same biological role as our lungs do by pumping oxygen into blood.

Bioprinted organs could someday help people who are waiting and sometimes dying on the organ transplant waitlist. In research published in the journal Science last week, the team behind the new printing technique made a similar device and successfully grafted it into mice with injured livers.

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3D Printer, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Bioengineers 3D print complex vascular networks

May 9, 2019

They’ll be essential to 3D-printed organs and replacement tissues.

Bioengineers are one step closer to 3D printing organs and tissues. A team led by Rice University and the University of Washington have developed a tool to 3D print complex and “exquisitely entangled” vascular networks. These mimic the body’s natural passageways for blood, air, lymph and other fluids, and they will be essential for artificial organs.

For decades, one of the challenges in replicating human tissues has been figuring out a way to get nutrients and oxygen into the tissue and how to remove waste. Our bodies use vascular networks to do this, but it’s been hard to recreate those in soft, artificial materials.

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3D Printer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough

Researchers create the first 3D-printed corneas

June 2, 2018

Researchers at Newcastle University have been able to 3D-print a biocompatible corneal framework using a new gel formulations that “keeps the stem cells alive whilst producing a material which is stiff enough to hold its shape but soft enough to be squeezed out the nozzle of a 3D printer.”

There is a significant shortage of corneas available to transplant, with 10 million people worldwide requiring surgery to prevent corneal blindness as a result of diseases such as trachoma, an infectious eye disorder,” wrote the researchers. “In addition, almost 5 million people suffer total blindness due to corneal scarring caused by burns, lacerations, abrasion or disease.”

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3D Printer, Biotech, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

The next Pharmaceutical revolution could be 3D printed

August 15, 2017

Body organs such as kidneys, livers and hearts are incredibly complex tissues. Each is made up of many different cell types, plus other components that give the organs their structure and allow them to function as we need them to.

Continue reading… “The next Pharmaceutical revolution could be 3D printed”